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Works by the Same Author 

ALEXANDER HAMILTON (An Essay on 
American Union). 

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THE ALTERNATIVES TO CIVIL WAR. 

Demy 8vo. Paper. 6d. net. 
WHAT FEDERALISM IS NOT. Demy 8vo. 
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OBDEAL BY BATTLE 



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TORONTO 



ORDEAL BY BATTLE 



BY 



FREDERICK SCOTT OLIVER 



With that they looked upon him, and began to reply 
in this sort : Simple said, I see no danger ; Sloth said, 
Yet a little more sleep ; and Presumption said, Every Vat 
must stand upon his own bottom. And so they lay down 
to sleep again, and Christian went on his way. 

The Pilgrim's Progress. 



MACMILLAN AND CO., LIMITED 

ST. MARTIN'S STEEET, LONDON 

1915 



6** 



9'> 



© 



COPYRIGHT 

First Edition June 1915 

Reprinted twice J tine 1915, July 1915 

Second Edition July 1915 

Reprinted twice August 1915, twice October 1915 






=4 

i 



TO 
THE MEMORY OP 

HUGH DAWNAY 

COMMANDING THE 2ND LIFE GUARDS 
WHO WAS KILLED AT ZWARTELEEN ON THE 6TH OP NOVEMBER 1914 

AND OP 

JOHN GOUGH, V.C. 

CHIEF OF THE STAFF OF THE FIRST ARMY 
WHO FELL NEAR ESTAIRES ON THE 20TH OF FEBRUARY 1915 

THEY WERE BROTHER -OFFICERS OF THE RIFLE BRIGADE 

AND THOSE WHO KNEW THEM BOTH 

WILL OFTEN THINK OF THEM TOGETHER 



PREFACE 

It is hardly necessary to plead, in extenuation of preface. 
those many faults which any impartial reader will The 
discover in the following pages, the impossibility of this book. 
discussing events which are unfolding themselves 
around us, in the same detached spirit as if we were 
dealing with past history. The greater part of this 
volume has been written in haste, and no one is more 
alive to its shortcomings than the author himself. 

Faults of style are a small matter, and will be 
easily forgiven. It has not been the aim to produce 
a work of literary merit, but solely to present a 
certain view of public affairs. It is to be hoped 
that actual errors of fact are rare. Inconsistencies 
however — or apparent inconsistencies — cannot be 
altogether avoided, even by careful revision. But 
the greatest difficulty of all is to keep a true sense 
of proportion. 

In Part I. — The Causes of War — an attempt has 
been made to state, very briefly, why it has hitherto 
proved impossible to eliminate the appeal to arms 
from human affairs ; to set out the main incidents 
which occurred at the opening of the present European 
struggle ; to explain the immediate occasions, as 



x ORDEAL BY BATTLE 

Ordeal well as the more permanent and deep-seated causes, 
Battle, of this conflict ; to consider some of the most glaring 
Th ~ miscalculations which have arisen out of misunder- 

tMs P book° f Ending between nations. 

In Part II. — The Spirit of German Policy — an 
attempt has been made to understand the ambitions 
of our chief antagonist, and to trace the manner in 
which these ambitions have been fostered, forced, 
and corrupted by a priesthood of learned men. The 
relations which exist between this Pedantocracy 
and the Bureaucracy, the Army, the Rulers, and the 
People of Germany have been examined. It would 
appear that under an academic stimulus, healthy 
national ambitions have become morbid, have re- 
sulted in the discovery of imaginary grievances, and 
have led the Governing Classes of Germany to adopt 
a new code of morals which, if universally adhered 
to, would make an end of human society. On the 
other hand, it would also appear that the German 
People have accepted the policy of their rulers, 
without in any way accepting, or even understanding, 
the morality upon which this policy is founded. It 
is also important for us to realise the nature of the 
judgment— not altogether unjustified — which our 
enemies have passed upon the British character, 
and upon our policy and institutions. 

In Part III. — The Spirit of British Policy — our 
own political course since the beginning of the century 
has been considered — the difficulties arising out of 
the competition for priority between aims which are 



PREFACE xi 

not in themselves antagonistic : between Social Preface. 
Reform, Constitutional Reform, and Imperial Defence T be 
— the confusion which has resulted from the in- tSbook. 
adequacy of one small parliament, elected upon a 
large variety of cross issues, for dealing with these 
diverse needs — the lowering of the tone of public 
life, the depreciation in the character of public men, 
which have come about owing to these two causes, 
and also to a third — the steadily increasing tyranny 
and corruption of the party machines. 

The aim of British Foreign Policy has been simply 
— Security. Yet we have failed to achieve Security, 
owing to our blindness, indolence, and lack of leader- 
ship. We have refused to realise that we were not 
living in the Golden Age ; that Policy at the last 
resort depends on Armaments ; that Armaments, 
to be effective for their purpose, must correspond 
with Policy. Political leaders of all parties up to 
the outbreak of the present war ignored these 
essentials ; or if they were aware of them, in the 
recesses of their own consciousness, they failed to 
trust the People with a full knowledge of the dangers 
which threatened their Security, and of the means 
by which alone these dangers could be withstood. 

The titles of Parts II. and III. are similar — The 
Spirit of German Policy and The Spirit of British 
Policy ; but although the titles are similar the treat- 
ment is not the same. Confession of a certain failure 
in proportion must be made frankly. The two 
pieces do not balance. German Policy is viewed 



xii OEDEAL BY BATTLE 

Obdeal from without, at a remote distance, and by an enemy. 

Battle. It is easier in this case to present a picture which is 

Th ~ clear, than one which is true. British Policy, on the 

purpose of ther hand, is viewed from within. If likewise it 

this book. ' 

is tinged with prejudice, the prejudice is of a different 
character. Both Parts, I fear, diverge to a greater 
or less extent from the main purpose of the book. 
Mere excision is easy ; but compression is a difficult 
and lengthy process, and I have not been able to 
carry it so far as I could have wished. 

In Part IV. — Democracy and National Service — 
an attempt has been made to deal with a problem 
which faces us at the moment. Democracy is not 
unlike other human institutions : it will not stand 
merely by its own virtue. If it lacks the loyalty, 
courage, and strength to defend itself when attacked, 
it must perish as certainly as if it possessed no virtue 
whatsoever. Manhood suffrage implies manhood 
service. Without the acceptance of this principle 
Democracy is merely an imposture. 

I prefer ' National Service ' to ' Conscription,' 
not because I shrink from the word ' Conscription,' 
but because ' National Service ' has a wider sweep. 
The greater includes the less. It is not only military 
duties which the State is entitled to command its 
citizens to perform unquestioningly in times of 
danger ; but also civil duties. It is not only men 
between the ages of twenty and thirty-eight to whom 
the State should have the right to give orders ; but 
men and women of all ages. Under conditions of 



PREFACE xiii 



modern warfare it is not only armies which need to Preface. 
be disciplined ; but whole nations. The undisciplined T he 
nation, engaged in anything like an equal contest Kbook. 
with a disciplined nation, will be defeated. 



This volume was in type before the Coalition The 

J x , ... Coalition 

Government was formed ; but there is nothing in it Govem- 
which I wish to change in view of that event. This 
book was not undertaken with the object of helping 
the Unionists back into power, or of getting the 
Liberals out of power. 

The new Cabinet contains those members of the 
late one in whom the country has most confidence. 
Lord Kitchener, Sir Edward Grey, Mr. Lloyd George, 
and Mr. Churchill have all made mistakes. In a 
great crisis it is the bigger characters who are most 
liable to make mistakes. Their superiority impels 
them to take risks which the smaller men, playing 
always for safety, are concerned to avoid. 

The present Ministry also contains representatives 
of that class of politicians which, according to the 
view set forth in the following pages, is primarily 
responsible for our present troubles. Lawyer-states- 
manship, which failed to foresee the war, to prepare 
against it, and to conduct it with energy and 
thoroughness when it occurred, still occupies a large 
share of authority. Possibly ministers of this school 



xiv ORDEAL BY BATTLE 

Ordeal will now walk in new ways. In any case, they are 

Battle, no longer in a position of dangerous predominance. 
Th ~ The Coalition Government, having wisely refused 

coalition fo p ar j. -^^ an y f those men who rose to the 

Govern- -t J 

ment. emergency, and having received an infusion of new 
blood (which may be expected to bring an accession 
of vigour) starts upon its career with the goodwill 
and confidence of the People. 

What has happened, however, is a revolution 
upon an unprecedented scale — one which is likely to 
have vast consequences in the future. The country 
realises this fact, and accepts it as a matter of course 
— accepts it indeed with a sigh of relief. But in 
other quarters, what has just happened is hardly 
realised at all — still less what it is likely to lead to 
in the future. 

During the ' Cabinet Crisis ' one read a good deal 
of stuff in the newspapers, and heard still more by 
word of mouth, which showed how far, during the 
past nine months, public opinion has moved away 
from the professionals of politics ; how little account 
it takes of them ; also how much these gentlemen 
themselves mistake the meaning of the present 
situation. 

In political circles one has heard, and read, very 
frequently of late, expressions of regret — on the one 
hand that Unionists should have come to the assistance 
of a discredited and bankrupt administration — on 
the other hand that a government, secure in the 
confidence of the country, should, through a mistaken 



PREFACE xv 

sense of generosity, have admitted its opponents Preface. 
to a share in the glory and prestige of office. One Tte 
has read, and heard, cavillings at the idea of appoint- Govem° n 
ing this or that public character to this or that ment * 
office, as a thing beyond what this or that party 
' could fairly be expected to stand.' Reports have 
appeared of meetings of ' a hundred ' perturbed 
Liberals ; and very possibly meetings, though un- 
reported, of equally perturbed Unionists have also 
been held. An idea seems still to be prevalent in 
certain quarters, that what has just occurred is 
nothing more important than an awkward and 
temporary disarrangement of the party game ; and 
that this game will be resumed, with all the old 
patriotism and good feeling, so soon as war is ended. 
But this appears to be a mistaken view. You 
cannot make a great mix-up of this sort without 
calling new parties into existence. When men are 
thrown into the crucible of a war such as this, the 
true ore will tend to run together, the dross to cake 
upon the surface. No matter to what parties they 
may have originally owed allegiance, the men who 
are in earnest, and who see realities, cannot help but 
come together. May be for several generations the 
annual festivals of the National Liberal Federation 
and the Union of Conservative Associations will 
continue to be held, like other picturesque survivals 
of ancient customs. When Henry VII. was crowned 
at Westminster, the Wars of the Roses ended ; the old 
factions of York and Lancaster were dissolved, and 



xvi ORDEAL BY BATTLE 

Ordeal made way for new associations. Something of the 

Ba™. same sort has surely happened during the past 

Th ~ month — Liberal and Conservative, Radical and Tory 

coalition j^ye ceased for the present to be real divisions. Thev 

Govern- - 1 J 

ment - had recently become highly artificial and confusing ; 
now they are gone — it is to be hoped for ever. 

Will the generation which is fighting this war — 
such of them as may survive — be content to go back 
to the old barren wrangle when it is done ? Will 
those others who have lost husbands, sons, brothers, 
friends — all that was dearest to them except the 
honour and safety of their country — will they be 
found willing to tolerate the idea of trusting their 
destinies ever again to the same machines, to be driven 
once more to disaster by the same automatons ? 
To all except the automatons themselves — who share 
with the German Supermen the credit of having made 
this war — any such resumption of business on old- 
established lines appears incredible. There is some- 
thing pathetic in the sight of these huckstering 
sentimentalists still crying their stale wares and 
ancient make-believes at the street corners, while 
their country is fighting for its life. They remind 
one, not a little, of those Pardoners of the fourteenth 
century who, as we read in history books, continued 
to hawk their Indulgences with unabated industry 
during the days of the Black Death. 



PREFACE xvii 

It is necessary to offer a few words of explanation preface. 
as to how this book came to be written. During Theorems 
the months of November and December 1912 and J f *£ s 
January 1913, various meetings and discussions took 
place under Lord Roberts's roof and elsewhere, between 
a small number of persons, who held widely different 
views, and whose previous experience and training 
had been as different as were their opinions. 

Our efforts were concerned with endeavouring 
to find answers to several questions which had never 
been dealt with candidly, clearly, and comprehensively 
in the public statements of political leaders. It 
was clear that there was no ' national ' policy, which 
the British people had grasped, accepted, and counter- 
signed, as was the case in France. But some kind 
of British policy there must surely be, notwith- 
standing the fact it had never been disclosed. What 
were the aims of this policy ? With what nation or 
nations were these aims likely to bring us into 
collision ? What armaments were necessary in order 
to enable us to uphold this policy and achieve these 
aims ? How, and when, and where would our 
armaments be required in the event of war ? Assum- 
ing (as we did in our discussions) that our naval 
forces were adequate, was the same statement true 
of our military forces ? And if it were not true, 
by what means could the necessary increases be 
obtained ? 

The final conclusion at which we arrived was 
that National Service was essential to security. 

b 



xviii ORDEAL BY BATTLE 

Okdeai, Under whatever aspect we regarded the problem we 

Ba™. always returned — even those of us who were most 

„«. — 7. unwilling to travel in that direction — to the same 

The origins © 

of this result. So long as Britain relied solely upon the 

book. ° 

voluntary principle, we should never possess either 
the Expeditionary Force or the Army for Home 
Defence which were requisite for safety. 

It fell to me during the winter 1912-1913 to draft 
the summary of our conclusions. It was afterwards 
decided— in the spring of 1913— that this private 
Memorandum should be recast in a popular form 
suitable for publication. I was asked to undertake 
this, and agreed to do so. But I underestimated 
both the difficulties of the task and the time which 
would be necessary for overcoming them. 

When we met again, in the autumn of that year, 
the work was still far from complete, and by that 
time, not only public attention, but our own, had 
become engrossed in other matters. The Irish 
controversy had entered upon a most acute and 
dangerous stage. Lord Roberts put off the meetings 
which he had arranged to address during the ensuing 
months upon National Service, and threw his whole 
energies into the endeavour to avert the schism 
which threatened the nation, and to find a way to 
a peaceful settlement. Next to the security -and 
integrity of the British Empire I verily believe that 
the thing which lay nearest his heart was the happiness 
and unity of Ireland. 

It is needless to recall how, during the ensuing 



of this 
book. 



PREFACE xix 

months, affairs in Ireland continued to march from preface. 
bad to worse — up to the very day when the menace T he~origins 
of the present war suddenly arose before the eyes of 
Europe. 

During August 1914 I went through the old drafts 
and memoranda which had now been laid aside for 
nearly a year. Although that very thing had 
happened which it had been the object of our efforts 
to avert, it seemed to me that there might be ad- 
vantages in publishing some portion of our conclusions. 
The form, of course, would have to be entirely 
different ; for the recital of prophecies which had 
come true, though it might have possessed a certain 
interest for the prophets themselves, could have but 
little for the public. 

Early in September I consulted Lord Roberts, 
and also such of my friends, who had originally worked 
with me, as were still within reach. Finding that 
their opinion agreed with my own upon the desir- 
ability of publication, I laid out a fresh scheme, and 
set to for a third time at the old task. But as the 
work grew, it became clear that it would contain but 
little of the former Memorandum, and much which 
the former Memorandum had never contemplated. 
So many of our original conclusions, laboriously 
hammered out to convince the public in the spring 
of the year 1913, had become by the autumn of 1914, 
the most trite of commonplaces. And as for the 
practical scheme which we had evolved — endeavouring 
to keep our demands at the most modest minimum — 



xx ORDEAL BY BATTLE 

ordeal it was interesting chiefly by reason of its triviality 

ba™. when contrasted with the scale of warlike preparations 

— ~ upon which the Government was now engaged. 

The origins Jtr <-><-> 

of this Practically, therefore, the whole of the present 
volume is new — not merely redrafted, but for the 
most part new in substance. 



author's 
acknow- 
ledgments 



The I wish to acknowledge my indebtedness to the 

acknow- friends with whom I have studied the problems of 
policy and defence for some years past. The re- 
sponsibility for the contents and publication of the 
present volume is mine alone ; but I have used their 
ideas without hesitation, and have drawn largely 
upon the notes and memoranda which they drafted 
for my assistance. I wish also to thank several 
others — one in chief — for the kindness with which, 
upon the present occasion, they have given me help 
and criticism as these pages were passing through 
the press. 

There is also another source to which I wish here 
gratefully to confess my obligations. During the 
past five years there have appeared in The Round 
Table certain articles upon the relations of England 
with Germany * which have been characterised by 

1 The Round Table (quarterly Review). Macmillan & Co., Ltd. Of the 
articles referred to the chief are : ' Anglo-German Rivalry ' (November 
1910) ; ' Britain, France, and Germany ' (December 1911) ; ' The Balkan 
War and the Balance of Power ' (June 1913) ; ' Germany and the Prussian 
Spirit ' (September 1914) ; ' The Schism of Europe ' (March 1915). It is 
to be hoped that these and some others may be republished before long in 
a more permanent form. 



PREFACE xxi 

a remarkable degree of prescience and sanity. At Preface. 
a certain point, however, there is a difference between ^l 
the views expressed in The Round Table and those ackno?- 
expressed in the following pages — a difference of led s ments « 
stress and emphasis perhaps, rather than of funda- 
mental opinion, but still a difference of some import- 
ance. I have dealt with this in the concluding 
chapter. 

J I should like to make one other acknowledgment 
of a different kind. I have known the editor of The 
National Review from a date long before he assumed 
his onerous office — from days when we were fresh- 
men together by the banks of the Cam. During a 
period of upwards of thirty years, I cannot remember 
that I have ever had the good fortune to see absolutely 
eye to eye with Mr. Maxse upon any public question. 
Even now I do not see eye to eye with him. In all 
probability I never shall. At times his views have 
been in sharp opposition to my own. But for these 
very reasons — if he will not resent it as an im- 
pertinence — I should like to say here how greatly I 
respect him for three qualities, which have been none 
too common among public men in recent times — 
first, for the clearness with which he grasps and 
states his beliefs ; secondly, for the courageous 
constancy with which he holds to them through 
good and evil report ; thirdly, for the undeviating 
integrity of his public career. Next to Lord Roberts, 
he did more perhaps than any other — though un- 
availingly — to arouse public opinion to the dangers 



xxiv ORDEAL BY BATTLE 

Ordeal He arrived at an opinion neither hastily nor slowly, 
battle, but at a moderate pace. He had the gift of stating 
~ his conclusion with admirable lucidity ; and if he 
Roberts, thought it desirable, he gave the reasons for his view 
of the matter with an equal clearness. But his 
reasons, like his conclusion, were in the nature of 
statements ; they were not stages in an argument. 
There are as many unanswerable reasons to be given 
for as against most human decisions. Ingenuity and 
eloquence are a curse at councils of war, and state, 
and business. Indeed, wherever action of any kind 
has to be determined upon they are a curse. It was 
Lord Koberts's special gift that, out of the medley of 
unanswerable reasons, he had an instinct for select- 
ing those which really mattered, and keeping his 
mind close shut against the rest. 

It is superfluous to speak of his courtesy of manner 
and kindness of heart, or of his unflagging devotion — 
up till the very day of his death — to what he regarded 
as his duty. There is a passage in Urquhart's trans- 
lation of Rabelais which always recalls him to my 
mind : — He was the best little great good man that ever 
girded a sword on his side ; he took all things in good 
part, and interpreted every action in the best sense. 
In a leading German newspaper there appeared, 
a few days after his death, the following reference 
to that event : — " It was not given to Lord Roberts 
' to see the realisation of his dreams of National 
' Service ; but the blows struck on the Aisne 
' were hammer - strokes which might after a long 



PREFACE xxv 

' time and bitter need produce it. Lord Roberts preface. 
' was an honourable and, through his renown, a Lord 
' dangerous enemy . . . personally an extraordinarily 
' brave enemy. Before such a man we lower our 
' swords, to raise them again for new blows dealt 
1 with the joy of conflict." 

Nor was this the only allusion of the kind which 
figured in German newspapers ' to the journey of 
' an old warrior to Walhalla/ with his final mission 
yet unaccomplished, but destined to be sooner or 
later accomplished, if his country was to survive. 
In none of these references, so far as I have been 
able to discover, was there the least trace of malice 
against the man who had warned his fellow- 
countrymen, more clearly than any other, against 
the premeditated aggression of Germany. This 
seems very strange when we recollect how, for 
nearly two years previously, a large section of the 
British nation had been engaged in denouncing 
Lord Roberts for the outrageous provocations which 
he was alleged to have offered to Germany — in 
apologising to Germany for his utterances — in 
suggesting the propriety of depriving him of his 
pension in the interests of Anglo - German amity. 
What this section has itself earned in the matter of 
German gratitude we know from many hymns and 
other effusions of hate. 



xxvi ORDEAL BY BATTLE 

Ordeal I have dedicated this volume to the memory of 

Battle. John Gough and Hugh Dawnay, not solely on grounds 

H h of friendship, but also because from both I received, 

fnajoL a ^ different times, much help, advice, and criticism — 

Gough. from the latter when the original Memorandum 

was in course of being drafted — from both when it 

was being reconsidered with a view to publication. 

Whether either of them would have agreed with the 

statement in its present form is more than I can 

venture to say, and I have no intention of claiming 

their authority for conclusions which were never seen 

by them in final shape. 

In the first instance (November 1912-March 1913) 
Dawnay 1 and I worked together. His original notes 
and memoranda are to a large extent incorporated 
in Parts III. and IV. — so closely, however, that 
I cannot now disentangle his from my own. The 
calculations as to numbers and probable distribution 
of the opposing forces, were almost entirely his. I 
have merely endeavoured here — not so successfully 
as I could wish — to bring them up to the date of the 
outbreak of war. 

Dawnay took out his squadron of the 2nd Life 
Guards to France early in August. Already, however, 
he had been appointed to the Headquarters General 
Staff, on which he served with distinction, until 
early in October, when he succeeded to the command 

1 Major the Hon. Hugh Dawnay, D.S.O., b. 1875 ; educated Eton and 
Sandhurst ; Rifle Brigade, 1895 ; Nile Campaign and Omdurman, 1898 ; 
South Africa, 1899-1900 ; Somaliland, 1908-1910 ; 2nd Life Guards, 1912 ; 
France, August-November 1914. 



PKEFACE xxvii 

of his regiment. He fell at Zwarteleen near Ypres Preface. 
on the 6th of November 1914 — one of the most Hugh 
anxious days during the four weeks' battle. and John 

His friends have mourned his death, but none 
of them have grudged it ; for he died, not merely 
as a brave man should — in the performance of his 
duty — but after having achieved, with consummate 
skill and daring, his part in an action of great 
importance. On the afternoon of this day General 
Kavanagh's Brigade of Household Cavalry * — sum- 
moned in haste — dismounted, and threw back a 
German attack which had partially succeeded in 
piercing the allied line at the point of junction between 
the French and English forces. This successful 
counter-attack saved the right flank of Lord Ca van's 
Guards' Brigade from a position of extreme danger, 
which must otherwise, almost certainly, have resulted 
in a perilous retreat. The whole of this Homeric 
story is well worth telling, and some day it may be 
told ; but this is not the place. 

Dawnay was fortunate inasmuch as he lost his 
life, not as so many brave men have done in this war 
— and in all others — by a random bullet, or as the 
result of somebody's blunder, or in an attempt which 
failed. On the contrary he played a distinguished, 
and possibly a determining part, in an action which 
succeeded, and the results of which were fruitful. 

He was not merely a brave and skilful soldier 

1 This Brigade was known during the battle of Ypres as ' the Fire 
Brigade,' for the reason that it was constantly being called up on a sudden 
to extinguish unforeseen conflagrations. 



xxviii ORDEAL BY BATTLE 

Ordeal when it came to push of pike, but a devoted student 

Battle, oi his profession in times of peace. The mixture 

Hu "^~" of eagerness and patience with which he went about 

Dawnay j-jg wor k reminded one, not a little, of that same 

and John ' 

Gough. combination of qualities as it is met with sometimes 
among men of science. 

Hunting accidents, the privations of Ladysmith 
followed by enteric, divers fevers contracted in 
hot climates, and the severity of a campaign in 
Somaliland, had severely tried his constitution — which 
although vigorous and athletic was never robust — 
and had increased a tendency to headaches and 
neuralgia to which he had been subject ever since 
boyhood. Yet he treated pain always as a despicable 
enemy, and went about his daily business as inde- 
f atigably when he was in suffering, as when he was en- 
tirely free from it, which in later years was but rarely. 

Dawnay had a very quick brain, and held his 
views most positively. It was sometimes said of him 
that he did not suffer fools gladly, and this was true 
up to a point. He was singularly intolerant of pre- 
sumptuous fools, who laid down the law about 
matters of which they were wholly ignorant, or who — 
having acquired a smattering of second-hand know- 
ledge — proceeded to put their ingenious and sophistical 
theories into practice. But for people of much 
slower wits than himself — if they were trying honestly 
to arrive at the truth — he was usually full of sym- 
pathy. His tact and patience upon great occasions 
were two of his noblest qualities. 



PREFACE xxix 

In some ways he used to remind me, not a little, preface. 
of Colonel Henry Esmond of Castlewood, Virginia. H ugh 
In both there was the same hard core of resistance an a djoL 
against anything, which appeared to challenge certain Goug " 
adamantine principles concerning conduct befitting 
a gentleman. On such matters he was exceedingly 
stiff and unyielding. And he resembled the friend 
of Lord Bolingbroke, and General Webb, and Dick 
Steele also in this, that he was addicted to the figure 
of irony when crossed in discussion. One imagines, 
however, that Colonel Esmond must have kept his 
countenance better, and remained imperturbably 
grave until his shafts had all gone home. In 
Dawnay's case the sight of his opponent's lengthening 
face was, as a rule, too much for his sense of humour, 
and the attack was apt to lose some of its force — 
certainly all its fierceness — in a smile which reminded 
one of Carlyle's description — ' sunlight on the sea.' 

The following extract from a letter written by 
one of his friends who had attended the War Service 
at St. Paul's gives a true picture : "A sudden vision 
arose in my imagination of Hugh Dawnay striding 
down the choir, in full armour, like St. Michael — 
with his head thrown back, and that extraordinary 
expression of resolution which he always seemed to 
me to possess more than any one I have ever seen. 
His wide-apart eyes had more of the spirit of truth 
in them than almost any — also an intolerance of 
falsehood — or rather perhaps a disbelief in its 
existence. . . ." This is true. He was one of 



xxx ORDEAL BY BATTLE 

Ordeal that race of men whose recumbent figures are seen 

Battle. m our old churches and cathedrals, with hands 

H ~J~" clasping crusaders' swords against their breasts, 

Dawnay ^heir hounds couching at their feet. 

and John ° 

Gough. 

In physique and temperament Hugh Dawnay 
and John Gough * were in most respects as unlike a 
pair of friends as ever walked this earth ; but we 
might have searched far before we could have found 
two minds which, on most matters connected with 
their profession, were in more perfect accord. Dawnay, 
younger by four years, had served under Gough in 
trying times, and regarded him (an opinion which 
is very widely shared by seniors as well as juniors) 
as one of the finest soldiers of his age. Though 
Dawnay was slender and of great height, while 
Gough was rather below the middle stature, broad 
and firmly knit, there was one striking point of 
physical resemblance between them, in the way their 
heads were set upon their shoulders. There was 
something in the carriage of both which seemed to 
take it for granted that they would be followed 
wherever they might chose to lead. In Lord Roberts, 
and also in a strikingly different character — Mr. 
Chamberlain — there was the same poise, the same 
stable equilibrium, without a trace in it of self- 
consciousness or constraint. It may be that the 

1 Brigadier-General John Edmund Gough, V.C., C.M.G., C.B., A.D.C. 
to the King ; b. 1871 ; educated Eton and Sandhurst ; Rifle Brigade, 1892 ; 
British Central Africa, 1896-1897 ; Nile Campaign and Omdurman, 1898 ; 
South Africa, 1899-1902 ; Somaliland, 1902-1903 and 1908-1909 ; France, 
August 1914^February 1915. 



PREFACE xxxi 

habit of command induces this bearing in a man; preface. 
or it may be that there is something in the nature of Hugh 
the man who bears himself thus which forces him ^joL 
to become a leader. Gough - 

Gough took no part in the preparation of the 
original Memorandum ; but in March 1913 he dis- 
cussed it with me * and made various criticisms 
and suggestions, most of which have been incorporated 
here. His chief concern with regard to all proposals 
for a National Army was, that the period of training 
should be sufficient to allow time for turning the 
average man into a soldier who had full confidence 
in himself. " When war breaks out " — I can hear his 
words — " it's not recruits we want : it's soldiers we 
1 want : that is, if our object is to win the war as 
' speedily as possible, and to lose as few lives as 
' possible." Under normal peace conditions he put 
this period at a minimum of two years for infantry ; 
but of course he would have admitted — and did, 
in fact, admit when I saw him last December — that 
under the stress and excitement of war the term might 
be considerably shortened. 

His chief concern in 1913 was with regard to 
shortage of officers. He criticised with great severity 
the various recent attempts at reforming our military 

1 At St. Jean de Luz, when he was endeavouring, though not very 
successfully, to shake off the after-effects of his last Somaliland campaign. 
He was then engaged in correcting the proofs of the volume of his Staff 
College lectures which was subsequently published under the title Fredericks- 
burg and Chancellorsville (Rees) — a most vivid and convincing narrative. 
In the intervals of work and golf he spent much of his time in visiting 
Wellington's adjacent battlefields and studying his passage of the Bidassoa 
and forcing of the Pyrenees. 



xxxii ORDEAL BY BATTLE 

Ordeal system, not only on the ground that we had chosen 

battle. to re ty upon training our national forces after war 

Hu ~^~ had actually broken out (in his view a most disastrous 

Dawnay decision) ; but also because we had not taken care 

and John ' 7 

Gough. to provide ourselves against the very emergency 
which was contemplated, by having a reserve of 
officers competent to undertake the training of the 
new army in case of need. 

I went to see him at Aldershot on the Friday 
before war was declared, and found, as I expected, 
that he regarded it as inevitable. He had undergone 
a very severe operation in the early summer, and was 
still quite unfit to stand the strain of hard exercise. 
It had been arranged that we were to go together, 
a few days later, to Sweden, for six weeks' shooting 
and fishing in the mountains. He was very anxious 
to return to England for the September manoeuvres. 
His surgeon, 1 however, forbade this, on the ground 
that even by that time he would not be fit to sit 
for a whole day in the saddle. 

He was in two moods on this occasion. He was as 
light-hearted as a boy who is unexpectedly released 
from school ; the reason being that the Army Medical 
Officer had that morning passed him as physically fit 
to go abroad with Sir Douglas Haig, to whom he had 
acted as Senior Staff Officer since the previous autumn. 

1 Gough's many friends will ever feel a double debt of gratitude to that 
distinguished surgeon, Sir Berkeley Moynihan, who by this operation 
restored him, after several years of ill-health and suffering, almost to 
complete health ; and who once again — when by a strange coincidence of 
war he found his former patient lying in the hospital at Estaires the day 
after he was brought in wounded — came to his aid, and all but achieved 
the miracle of saving his life. 



PREFACE xxxiii 

His other mood was very different. The war preface 
which he had foreseen and dreaded, the war which Hugh 
in his view might have been avoided upon one con- ^joL 
dition, and one only — if England had been prepared — Gou s b - 
had come at last. I don't think I have ever known 
any one — certainly never any anti-militarist — whose 
hatred and horror of war gave the same impression 
of intensity and reality as his. Not metaphorically, 
but as a bare fact, his feelings with regard to it were 
too deep for words ; he would suddenly break off 
speaking about things which had ' occurred in his 
own experience ; in particular, about loss of friends 
and comrades. He was an Irishman, and had not 
the impassive coldness of some of the great soldiers. 
But most of all he hated war when it was not in- 
evitable — when with foresight and courage it might 
have been averted — as in his opinion this war might 
have been. 

In radium there is said to be a virtue which 
enables it to affect adjacent objects with its own 
properties, and to turn them, for a time, and for 
certain purposes, into things of the same nature 
as itself. Certain rare human characters possess a 
similar virtue ; but although I have met with several 
of these in my life, there is none of them all who 
seemed to me to possess this quality in quite so high 
a degree as Gough. He was an alchemist who made 
fine soldiers out of all sorts and conditions of men, 
and whose spirit turned despondency out of doors. 

The clearness of his instinct and the power of his 

c 



xxxiv OKDEAL BY BATTLE 

ordeal mind were not more remarkable than his swiftness 

battle, of decision and indomitable will. There are scores — 

Hu-h~ probably hundreds — of young officers who fought 

Dawnay foy ^jg s [^ e or under him, at Ypres and elsewhere, 

and John * 

Gough. wno years hence, when they are themselves dis- 
tinguished — perhaps great and famous — and come, 
in the evening of their days, to reckon up and con- 
sider the influences which have shaped their careers, 
will place his influence first. And there are boys 
looking forward to the day when they shall be old 
enough to serve in the King's Army, chiefly from 
the love and honour in which they held this hero, 
with his winning smile and superb self-confidence. 

He has left behind him a tradition, if ever man 
did. You will find it everywhere, among young and 
old — among all with whom he ever came into touch. 
Nor is the tradition which he has left merely among 
soldiers and with regard to the art of war, but also 
in other spheres of private conduct and public life. 
He had strong prejudices as well as affections, which 
made him sometimes judge men unfairly, also on 
the other hand too favourably ; but he banished 
all meanness from his neighbourhood, all thoughts 
of self-interest and personal advancement. Duty, 
discipline, self -discipline, and the joy of life — these 
were the rules he walked by ; and if you found your- 
self in his company you had perforce to walk with 
him, keeping up with his stride as best you could. 

We value our friends for different qualities, and 
would have their tradition fulfil itself in different 



PREFACE xxxv 

ways. Those of us who counted these two — ' Johnnie' preface. 
Gough and Hugh Dawnay — among our friends will Hugh 
wish that our sons may be like them, and follow TnTjoL 
in their footsteps. Gough - 

F. S. 0. 

Checkendon Court, Oxfordshire, 
1st June 1915. 



C'2 



OKDEAL BY BATTLE 



PART I 

PAGE 

The Causes of War ..... 1 



PART II 

The Spirit of German Policy . . . .85 

PART III 

The Spirit of British Policy . . . .179 

PART IV 

Democracy and National Service . . . 307 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 

PART I 
THE CAUSES OE WAK 



CHAPTER I 



PEACE AND WAR 



Peace is the greatest of British interests 

Peaceful intentions will not ensure peace 

Futility of Pacifism 

Causes of wars in general 

Causes of the American Civil War . 

Influence of ideas of duty and self-sacrifice 



1 
2 
6 
8 
10 
11 



CHAPTER II 



THE OUTBREAK OP WAR 



July-August 1914 

Reality or illusion 

The Serajevo murders . 

Austria and Servia 

English efforts to preserve peace 

Mobilisation in Germany and Russia 

Questions of neutrality 

German Army enters Luxemburg, Belgium, and France 

General conflagration ..... 



13 
15 
16 
17 
18 
19 
19 
20 
20 



xxxviii ORDEAL BY BATTLE 

CHAP TEE III 

WHO WANTED WAR ? 

Why did war occur ? . 

Servia did not want war 

Neither did Russia or France 

Nor Belgium or England 

Austria wanted war with Servia alone 

Germany encouraged Austria to bring on war 

Germany desired war believing that England would remain 

neutral ....... 

Austrian eleventh-hour efforts for peace frustrated by Germany 
Sir Edward Grey's miscalculation .... 

M. Sazonof thought war could have been avoided by plain 

speaking ..... 
Sir Edward Grey's reasons against plain speaking 
Which was right ? 



CHAPTER IV 

THE PENALTY OP NEGLIGENCE 

Was war inevitable ? . 

Not if England had been prepared morally and materially 

Previous apprehensions of war .... 

Peculiar characteristics of German animosity 

British public opinion refused to treat it seriously. 



CHAPTER V 

PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY 

Who actually caused the conflagration ? 

Influence of the Professors, Press, and People of Germany 

Influence of the Court, Army, and Bureaucracy . 

Various political characters . . . . . 

The Kaiser . ... 

There was no master-spirit ..... 



PAGE 

22 
22 
23 
25 
26 
29 

29 
30 
31 

32 
33 
34 



36 
37 
38 
39 

40 



42 
43 
44 
46 
48 
51 



CONTENTS 



XXXIX 



CHAPTER VI 



GERMAN MISCALCULATIONS 



Hero-worship and sham super-men . 

The Blunders of Bureaucracy 

As to the time-table of the war 

As to the quality of the French Army 

As to the opinion of the world 

As to the treatment of Belgium 

As to British neutrality 

As to the prevalence of Pacifism in England 

As to Civil War in Ireland 

As to rebellion in South Africa 

As to Indian sedition . 

As to the spirit of the self-governing Dominions 

Lack of instinct and its consequences 



PAGE 

53 

55 
55 
55 
56 
57 
58 
59 
62 
64 
65 
67 
67 



CHAPTER VII 

INTERNATIONAL ILL-WILL 

Great events do not proceed from small causes 

German hatred of England .... 

This is the German people's war 

Their illusion that England brought it about 

Difficulties in the way of international understandings 

British and German diplomacy compared . 

German distrust and British indifference 

British policy as it appears to German eyes 

Vacillation mistaken for duplicity 

German policy as it appears to British eyes 



69 
70 
71 
73 
73 
74 
78 
79 
80 
81 



PART II 

THE SPIRIT OF GERMAN POLICY 



CHAPTER I 

THE BISMARCKIAN EPOCH 



National dreams 
1789 and after . 



87 
87 



xl 



ORDEAL BY BATTLE 



The first German dream — Union 
How it was realised 
What the world thought of it 
Material development in Germany 
The peace policy of Bismarck 



89 
90 
91 

92 



CHAPTER II 



AFTER BISMARCK 



Nightmares and illusions 

Grievances against England, France, and Russia 

The second German dream — Mastery of the World 

Absorption of Belgium, Holland, and Denmark 

The Austro-Hungarian inheritance . 

The Balkan peninsula . 

Turkey in Asia .... 

German diplomacy at Constantinople 

The Baghdad Railway 

The hoped-for fruits of ' inevitable ' wars 

The possession of Africa 

The Chinese Empire 



94 

96 

97 

98 

98 

99 

100 

101 

102 

103 

103 

104 



CHAPTER III 

THE GERMAN PROJECT OF EMPIRE 

Qualities of the German vision 

Symmetry and vastness are dangerous ideals • 

Frederick the Great and Bismarck . 

German predisposition to follow dreamers . 

Grotesque proportions of the Second German dream 

The two Americas ..... 

Pacifism and Militarism meet at infinity 



106 
107 
108 
108 
109 
110 
111 



CHAPTER IV 

THE NEW MORALISTS 

Germany goes in search of an ethical basis 
Special grievances against France and England 
German thinkers recast Christian morals 



113 
114 
115 



CONTENTS 

Heinrich von Treitschke 

The principle of the state is power 

Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche . 

His contempt for British and Prussian ideals 

General von Bernhardi 

New morality never accepted by the German people 

Thrown over even by ' the brethren ' when war occurred 

Causes of this apostasy . 



Xli 

PAOB 

116 
117 
118 
119 
122 
123 
124 
126 



CHAPTER V 



THE STATECRAFT OF A PRIESTHOOD 

German education a drill system 

Intellectuals are ranged on the government side 

Eighteenth-century France and modern Germany 

Contrast between their bureaucracies 

Between the attitude of their intellectuals . 

Between their fashions of fancy dress 

Dangers to civilisation from within and without 

Political thinkers are usually destructive 

Unfitness of priesthoods for practical affairs 

Contrast between priests and lawyers 

Natural affinity between soldiers and priests 

Unforeseen consequences of German thoroughness 

May lead ultimately to ostracism of Germany 

Types of German agents 

Treacherous activities in time of peace 

The German political creed 

The true aim of this war 



127 
129 
129 
130 
131 
131 
132 
133 
135 
137 
139 
140 
140 
141 
142 
144 
146 



CHAPTER VI 

THE DEVIL'S ADVOCATE 

Intelligence and enterprise of the Germans 

They are nevertheless devoted to their own institutions 

German system is not reactionary but the reverse 

Experts are honoured and trusted . 

German esteem for men of learning . 

And for the military caste .... 



149 
150 
151 
151 
152 
153 



xlii ORDEAL BY BATTLE 

PAGE 

And for their Kaiser ....... 155 

German contempt for party government .... 156 

And for the character of British official news . . .157 

And for the failure of the British Government to trust the people 160 
And for its fear of asking the people to make sacrifices . . 161 

And for the voluntary system ..... 162 

Their pride in the successes of German arms . . .163 

And in the number and spirit of their new levies . . . 163 

Which they contrast with British recruiting . . . 164 

The methods of which they despise ..... 165 

What is meant by ' a popular basis ' of government ? .166 

CHAPTER VII 

THE CONFLICTS OF SYSTEMS AND IDEAS 

Two issues between England and Germany . . .167 

Democracy cannot endure unless capable of self-defence . . 168 

Democracy good and bad ...... 169 

Self-criticism may be carried too far . . . .171 

The two dangers of democracy — German Arms and German Ideas 173 
Fundamental opposition between the spirit of German policy and 

our own ........ 173 

German people have not accepted the moral ideas of their priest- 
hood 174 

Recantation among ' the brethren ' themselves on outbreak of 

war . . . . . . . . . 175 

The cult of war ....... 176 



PAET III 
THE SPIRIT OF BRITISH POLICY 

CHAPTER I 

A REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD (JANUARY 1901-JULY 1914) 

In this war Democracy is fighting for its existence . .181 

Against highly organised materialism .... 183 

The opening of the twentieth century .... 186 



CONTENTS xliii 

PAGE 

Spirit of constitutional change ..... 188 

Disappearance of great figures from the scene . . .189 

Change in character of the House of Commons . . .192 

Dearth of leadership ....... 194 

Consequent demoralisation of parties . . . .195 

And widespread anxiety ...... 196 

Pre-eminence of Mr. Asquith ...... 197 

His Parliamentary supremacy . . . . .198 

His maxim — ivait-and-see ...... 199 

Character of his oratory ...... 199 

Increasing prominence of lawyers in politics . . . 200 

Their influence on Parliamentary institutions and national policy 201 
Mr. Asquith's limitations ...... 203 



CHAPTER II 



THREE GOVERNING IDEAS 

Situation at the death of Queen Victoria . 

Comfort and security are not synonymous . 

Two problems absorbed public attention 

Social and Constitutional Reform 

A third problem, security, was overlooked . 

Social Reform intrinsically the most important 

The urgent need of peace 

Earnestness of public opinion 

How it was baulked by circumstances 

Limitations of popular judgment 

Want of leadership .... 

Strangulation of sincerity by party system 

The artificial opposition of three great ideas 



207 
208 
209 
209 
210 
211 
212 
212 
213 
214 
216 
218 
221 



CHAPTER III 

POLICY AND ARMAMENTS 

The aim of British policy .... 
Organised and unorganised defences . 
Policy depends on armaments, armaments on policy 
Difficulty of keeping these principles in mind 



223 
223 
225 
226 



xliv 



OKDEAL BY BATTLE 



PAGE 

Diplomacy to-day depends more than ever on armaments . 228 

The sad example of China ...... 229 

Policy should conform to national needs .... 230 

Dangers threatening British security (1901-1914) . . . 231 

The Committee of Imperial Defence .... 232 

Reasons of its comparative failure ..... 234 

Parliament and the people were left uneducated . . . 235 

Naval preparations were adequate ..... 236 

Military preparations were absurdly inadequate . . . 237 
Our Foreign policy rested on an entirely false assumption as re- 
gards the adequacy of our Army .... 238 



CHAPTER IV 



THE BALANCE OP POWER 

Security required that we should take account of Europe . .241 

German aim — the suzerainty of Western Europe . . . 243 

Maintenance of the Balance of Power .... 244 

This is the unalterable condition of British security . . 245 

This need produced the Triple Entente .... 247 

Splendid isolation no longer compatible with security . . 249 

Meaning of a defensive war ...... 249 

Defence of north-eastern frontier of France essential to British 

security . . . . . . . . 250 



CHAPTER V 

THE MILITARY SITUATION (AUGUST 1911) 

The British ' Expeditionary Force ' . . . . . 252 

Numbers as a test of adequacy ..... 253 

Relations of Italy with Germany and Austria in event of war . 254 

Troops for defence of coasts and neutral frontiers . . 256 

Germany must hold Russia in check with superior numbers . 256 

Germany would then endeavour to crush France . . . 257 

Having a superiority of 500,000 men available for this purpose . 257 

Why neutrality of Holland was a German interest . . 258 

Why neutrality of Belgium was an obstacle to Germany . . 259 

Inadequacy of our own Army to turn the scales . . . 260 

Our armaments did not correspond with our policy . . 261 



CONTENTS xlv 

PAGE 

Ministerial confidence in the ' voluntary system ' . . . 261 

Three periods of war — the onset, the grip, and the drag . . 263 

In 1870 the onset decided the issue ..... 264 

By 1914 the power of swift attack had increased . . . 265 

Forecasts confirmed by experience (Aug.-Sept. 1914) . . 266 

Immense value of British sea-power .... 266 

No naval success, however, can win a European war . . 267 

Naval supremacy not the only essential to British security . 268 



CHAPTER VI 

THE MILITARY SITUATION (AUGUST 1914) 

Changes between August 1911 and August 1914 

Sensational German increases in 1913 took full effect within 

a year ..... 

Inability of France to counter this effort unaided 
French increase could not take effect till 1916 
Russian and Austrian increases 
No attempt to increase British Army though it is below strength 
Balkan wars (1912-1913) 
Their effect on Balance of Power 
Reasons why they did not lead to general conflagration 
Germany's two dates : June 1914 — June 1916 



269 

270 
270 
271 
272 
273 
273 
274 
275 
275 



CHAPTER VII 



A TRAGEDY OF ERRORS 

Why should we suspect Germany of evil intentions ? . . 277 

The German Fleet was a challenge to British security . . 278 

Candour of German publicists ..... 278 

British Government finds comfort in official assurances of Berlin 279 
Disregarded warnings . . . . . . 279 

First Warning ........ 279 

(1905-1906) Morocco incident 279 

After which British naval programme was reduced . . 280 

Second Warning . . . . . . .281 

(1908-1909) Secret acceleration and increase of German naval 

programme . . . . . . .281 



xlvi 



ORDEAL BY BATTLE 



Imperial Defence Conference . 
Third Warning .... 

(1910) German sincerity under suspicion 
The Constitutional Conference 
Secret de Polichinelle . 

Failure of British Government to trust the people 
Fourth Warning . . 

(1911) The Agadir incident . 
Mr. Lloyd George's speech 
Consequences of various kinds 
Fifth Warning .... 

(1912) Lord Haldane's rebuff 
Menacing nature of German proposals 
Dangers of amateur diplomacy 
German love of irregular missions 
Sixth Warning .... 

(1913) German Army Bill and War Loan 
British Government ignore the danger 
Neglect military preparations 
Shrink from speaking plainly to the people 
Difficulties of Sir Edward Grey 
Enemies in his own household 
Radical attacks on Foreign Secretary and First Lord of Admiralty 

fomented by Germany 
Attitude of a leaderless Cabinet 
Parallelogram of fears determines drift of policy 
Evil effects of failure to educate public opinion 
Danger of breaking the Liberal party 
Occasional efficacy of self-sacrifice 
War not inevitable had England been prepared 



PAGE 

281 
282 
282 
283 
283 
284 
285 
285 
285 
286 
287 
287 
288 
289 
290 
294 
294 
295 
297 
298 
298 
299 

299 
300 
301 
302 
303 
303 
304 



PART IV 

DEMOCRACY AND NATIONAL SEEVICE 



CHAPTER I 

THE BRITISH ARMY AND THE PEACE OP EUROPE 

Public opinion puzzled by military problems 

The nation's growing anxiety and distrust (1909-1914) 



309 
310 



CONTENTS xlvii 

PAOE 

Army affairs a shuttlecock in the political game . . . 312 

' The blood taxes ' 313 

The nation realised it had not been treated with candour . . 313 

Powerful British Army the best guarantee for European peace 314 
Alone among European nations Britain had not an army 

commensurate to her population, policy, and resources . 316 



CHAPTER II 



THE COMPOSITION OF THE BRITISH ARMY 

The Regular Army ....... 317 

Three classes of reserves ...... 318 

The Army Reserve ....... 318 

The Special Reserve . . . . . . .319 

The Territorial Army ....... 320 

The numbers of trained soldiers immediately available for war . 321 
These were inadequate to redress the balance against the Triple 

Entente . . . . . . . .322 

In the onset period untrained and half-trained troops were of 

no use ........ 322 

Shortage of officers capable of training raw troops . . 323 

Lord Haldane's failure to carry out his own principles . . 324 

Moral effect of our support of France at Agadir crisis . . 326 

Adverse changes between 1911 and 1914 .... 326 

Size of British striking force necessary as complete insurance 

against a coolly calculated war ..... 327 

Reserves required behind this striking force . . . 328 

South African War no precedent for a European war . . 330 



CHAPTER III 

lord roberts's warnings 



The Manchester speech (October 22, 1912) 
Liberal denunciation and Unionist coolness 
Attack concentrated on three passages 
Two of these have been proved true by events 



332 
332 
333 
334 



xlviii OKDEAL BY BATTLE 

PAGE 

The other was misinterpreted by its critics . . . 335 

Liberal criticism ....... 336 

Unionist criticism ....... 341 

Ministerial rebukes . . . . . . . 343 

No regret has ever been expressed subsequently for any of these 

attacks ........ 347 



CHAPTEE IV 

LORD KITCHENER'S TASK 

All Lord Roberts's warnings were proved true . . . 350 

Many people nevertheless still believed that the voluntary system 

was a success ....... 351 

Lord Kitchener as Secretary of State for War . . . 353 

His previous record of success ..... 354 

His hold on public confidence ..... 354 

His grasp of the simple essentials ..... 355 

His determination to support France and make a New Army . 355 

His remarkable achievements ..... 356 

His want of knowledge of British political and industrial 

conditions ........ 356 

His colleagues, however, understood these thoroughly . . 357 

CHAPTER V 

MATERIAL OP WAR 

Industrial congestion at the outbreak of war . . . 358 

Need for looking far ahead and organising production of war 

material ........ 359 

The danger of labour troubles ..... 360 

Outcry about shortage of supplies ..... 360 

Official denials were disbelieved . . . . . 361 

CHAPTER VI 

METHODS OP RECRUITING 

The first need was men ...... 364 

A call for volunteers the only way of meeting it . . . 364 



CONTENTS 



xlix 



The second need was a system to provide men as required over 

the period of the war .... 
No system was devised .... 

The Government shrank from exercising its authority 
Trusted to indirect pressure .... 
And sensational appeals .... 

They secured a new army of the highest quality . 
But they demoralised public opinion by their methods 
Public opinion at the outbreak of war was admirable 
It was ready to obey orders ... 

No orders came ..... 

The so-called triumph of the voluntary system 
From the point of view of a Belgian or a Frenchman the 

triumph is not so clear ..... 
The voluntary system is inadequate to our present situation 
Folly of waiting for disaster to demonstrate the necessity of 

National Service ....... 



365 
365 
366 
366 
367 
368 
369 
372 
373 
374 
376 

377 
379 

380 



CHAPTER VII 



PERVERSITIES OP THE ANTI-MILITARIST SPIRIT 

British methods of recruiting in normal times 

The Conscription of Hunger ..... 

The cant of the voluntary principle 

The ' economic ' fallacy ..... 

The fallacy of underrating the morale of conscript armies 

The army which we call ' voluntary ' our enemies call ' mercenary ' 

' Mercenary ' describes not the British Army but the British 

People ....... 

The true description of the British Army is • Professional ' 
The theory of the British Army .... 

That officers should pay for the privilege of serving 

That the rank and file should contract for a term of years 

Under pressure of want 

At pay which is below the market rate 

This contract is drastically enforced 

With the full approval of anti-militarist opinion 

Inconsistencies of the anti-militarists 

Their crowning inconsistency . 



382 
382 
384 
385 
387 
389 

389 
390 
391 
391 
392 
392 
392 
393 
393 
394 
395 



1 ORDEAL BY BATTLE 

PAGK 

Other industries put pressure on society .... 396 

Why should not a professional army ? 396 

The example of Rome ...... 397 

A professional army when it first interferes in politics usually 

does so as a liberator ...... 397 

Then military despotism follows speedily .... 399 

A fool's paradise ....... 399 



CHAPTER VIII 

SOME HISTORICAL REFLECTIONS 

Bugbears ........ 401 

Conflict of ' opinion ' with ' the facts ' 402 

An army is no defence unless it is available for service abroad . 402 

The Industrial Epoch (1832-1886) 403 

Its grudging attitude towards the Army .... 403 
Honour paid by conscript nations to their armies . . . 406 

Democracy cannot subsist without personal service . . 406 

During the Industrial Epoch exemption from Personal Service 

was regarded as the essence of Freedom . . . 408 

War was regarded as an anachronism .... 409 

Since 1890 there has been a slow but steady reaction from 

these ideas . . . . . . . . 410 

Volunteer movement and Territorial Army compared . .411 

Effect of the Soudan campaign and South African War . .411 

Effect of more recent events ...... 412 

Have we passed out of a normal condition into an abnormal 

one, or the reverse ?...... 412 

Germany's great grievance against Britain : we thought to 

hold our Empire without sacrifices .... 413 
The Freiherr von Hexenkiichen's views — 

(1) On our present case of conscience . . . .415 

(2) On our voluntary system . . . . .416 

The American Civil War . . . . . .417 

Lincoln insisted on conscription (1863) . . . .418 

His difficulties 418 

Results of his firmness . . . . . .419 

Difference in our own case . . . . . .419 



CONTENTS 

Our need for conscription is much greater . 

It is also far easier for our Government to enforce it 



PAGE 

419 

420 



CHAPTEE IX 

THE CRUCIBLE OF WAR 

The objects of this book ..... 

Criticism of naval and military strategy is no part of 
purpose ...... 

Nor the ultimate political settlement of Europe 

Nor an inquisition into ' German atrocities ' 

But the basis of Germany's policy must be understood 

And what we are fighting for and against 

The causes of German strength 

The causes of British weakness 

Illusions as to the progress of the war 

The real cause of our going to war . 

Democracy is not by its nature invincible 

Leadership is our chief need . 

The folly of telling half-truths to the People 



its 



421 

422 
424 
424 
425 
425 
427 
427 
428 
430 
431 
433 
435 



PART I 
THE CAUSES OF WAR 



Then Apollyon steodled quite over the whole breadth of the 
way, and said, i am void of pear in this matter, peepare thyself 
to die ; poe i swear by my infernal den, that thou shalt go no 
fuethee; heee will i spill thy soul. 

And with that he theew a flaming Dart at his beeast, but 
Christian had a shield in his hand, with which he caught it, and 
so peevented the dangee of that. 

Then did Christian deaw, foe he saw 'twas time to bestir him : 
and Apollyon as fast made at him, throwing Darts as thick as Hatl ; 
by the which, notwithstanding all that christian could do to 
avoid it, Apollyon wounded him in his head, his hand, and foot : 
This made Christian give a little back ; Apollyon therefoee 
followed his woek amain, and Christian again took coueage, and 
eesisted as manfully as he could. This soee Combat lasted foe 
above half a day, even till Christian was almost quite spent ; 
foe you must know that christian, by eeason of his wounds, must 
needs geow weakee and weakee. 

Then Apollyon espying his oppoetunity, began to gathee up 
close to Christian, and wrestling with him, gave him a dreadful 
fall ; and with that christian's swoed flew out of his hand. 
Then said Apollyon, I am sure of thee now: and with that he had 
almost peessed him to death, so that christian began to despate 
of life. But as God would have it, while Apollyon was fetching 
of his last blow, theeeby to make a full end of this good man, 
Christian nimbly beached out his hand foe his Swoed, and caught 
it, saying, Rejoice not against me, mine Enemy ! when I fall 
i shall arise; and with that gave him a deadly thrust, which 
made him give back, as one that had received his mortal wound : 
Christian perceiving that, made at him again, saying, Nay, in all 
these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved 
us. And with that Apollyon spread forth his Dragon's wings, 
and sped hem away, that christian for a season saw him no more. 
In this Combat no man can imagine, unless he had seen and 
heard as i did, what yelling and hideous roaring, apollyon made 
att, the time of the fight ; he spake like a dragon, . . 

The Pilgrim's Progress. 



CHAPTER I 

PEACE AND WAR 

It is a considerable number of years since the most Part i. 
distinguished Tory statesman of his time impressed Chapter 
upon his fellow-countrymen as a maxim of policy, __ 
that Peace is the qreatest of British interests. There Peace and 
was an unexpectedness about Lord Salisbury's words, 
coming as they did from the leader of a party which 
had hitherto lain under suspicion of jingoism, which 
gave the phrase almost the colour of an epigram. 
The truth of the saying, however, gradually became 
manifest to all men ; and thereupon a new danger 
arose out of this very fact. 

As a nation we are in some ways a great deal 
too modest ; or it may be, looking at the matter 
from a critical standpoint, too self-centred. We 
have always been inclined to assume in our calcula- 
tions that we ourselves are the only possible disturbers 
of the peace, and that if we do not seek war, or 
provoke it, no other Power will dream of forcing war 
upon us. This unfortunately has rarely been the 
case; and those persons who, in recent times, have 
refused most scornfully to consider the lessons of 
past history, have now at last learned from a sterner 
schoolmaster the falseness of their favourite doctrine. 

The United Kingdom needed and desired peace, so 



war, 



4 THE CAUSES OF WAE 

PaktL that it might proceed undistracted, and with firm 
Chapter purpose, to set its house in order. The Dominions 

'__ needed peace, so that they might have time to people 

Peace and their fertile but empty lands, to strike deep roots 
and become secure. To the Indian Empire and the 
Dependencies peace was essential, if a system of 
government, which aimed, not unsuccessfully, at 
giving justice and fostering well-being, was to main- 
tain its power and prestige unshaken. The whole 
British race had nothing material to gain by war, 
but much to lose, much at any rate which would be 
put in jeopardy by war. In spite of all these weighty 
considerations which no man of sense and knowledge 
will venture to dispute, we should have been wiser 
had we taken into account the fact, that they did not 
apply to other nations, that in the main they affected 
ourselves alone, and that our case was no less singular 
than, in one sense at all events, it was fortunate. 

We did not covet territory or new subjects. Still 
less were we likely to engage in campaigns out of a 
thirst for glory. In the latter particular at least we 
were on a par with the rest of the world. The cloud 
of anxiety which for ten or more years has brooded 
over the great conscript nations, growing steadily 
darker, contained many dangers, but among these 
we cannot reckon such antiquated motives as trivial 
bravado, light-hearted knight-errantry, or the vain 
pursuit of military renown. 

What is called in history books ' an insult ' seemed 
also to have lost much of its ancient power for plunging 
nations into war. The Chancelleries of Europe had 
grown cautious, and were on the watch against being 
misled by the emotions of the moment. A sensational 
but unintended injury was not allowed to drive us 



DANGERS TO PEACE 5 

into war with Russia in 1904, and this precedent part i. 
seemed of good augury. Moreover, when every Chapter 
statesman in Europe was fully alive to the electric L 
condition of the atmosphere, a deliberate insult was Peace and 
not very likely to be offered from mere ill-manners 
or in a fit of temper, but only if there were some 
serious purpose behind it, in which case it would fall 
under a different category. 

Fear was a great danger, and everybody knew it 
to be so — fear lest this nation, or that, might be 
secretly engaged in strengthening its position in order 
to crush one of its neighbours at some future date, 
unless that neighbour took time by the forelock and 
struck out forthwith. Among the causes which 
might bring about a surprise outbreak of war this was 
the most serious and probable. It was difficult to 
insure against it. But though perilous in the extreme 
while it lasts, panic is of the nature of an epidemic : 
it rages for a while and passes away. It had been 
raging now with great severity ever since 1909, 1 and 
by midsummer 1914 optimists were inclined to seek 
consolation in the thought that the crisis must surely 
be over. 

More dangerous to peace in the long run even than 
fear, were certain aims and aspirations, which from 
one standpoint were concrete and practical, but re- 
garded from another were among the cloudiest of 
abstractions — ' political interests,' need of new 
markets, hunger for fresh territory to absorb the 
outflow of emigrants, and the like ; on the other 
hand, those hopes and anxieties which haunt the 

1 The increase and acceleration of German shipbuilding was discovered 
by the British Government in the autumn of 1908, and led to the Imperial 
Defence Conference in the summer of the following year. 



war 



6 THE CAUSES OF WAE 

part i. imaginations of eager men as they look into the 
Chapter future, and dream dreams and see visions of a grand 

_'_ national fulfilment. 
Peace and If the British race ever beheld a vision of this sort, 
it had been realised already. We should have been 
wise had we remembered that this accomplished 
fact, these staked-out claims of the British Empire, 
appeared to fall like a shadow across visions seen 
by other eyes, blotting out some of the fairest hopes, 
and spoiling the noble proportions of the patriot's 
dream. 

There is a region where words stumble after truth, 
like children chasing a rainbow across a meadow to 
find the pot of fairy gold. Multitudinous volumes 
stuffed with the cant of pacifism and militarism will 
never explain to us the nature of peace and war. But 
a few bars of music may sometimes make clear things 
which all the moralists, and divines, and philosophers 
— even the poets themselves for the most part, though 
they come nearer to it at times than the rest — have 
struggled vainly to show us in their true proportions. 
The songs of a nation, its national anthems — if they 
be truly national and not merely some commissioned 
exercise — are better interpreters than state papers. 
A man will learn more of the causes of wars, perhaps 
even of the rights and wrongs of them, by listening 
to the burst and fall of the French hymn, the ebb 
and surge of the Russian, in Tschaikovsky's famous 
overture, than he ever will from books or speeches, 
argument or oratory. 

Yet there are people who think it not impossible 
to prove to mankind by logical processes, that the 
loss which any great nation must inevitably sustain 
through war, will far outweigh any advantages which 



IMPOTENCE OF LOGIC 7 

can ensue from it, even if the arms of the conqueror part i. 
were crowned with victories greater than those of Chapter 
Caesar or Napoleon. They draw us pictures of the _^1_ 
exhaustion which must inevitably follow upon such Peace and 
a struggle conducted upon the modern scale, of the 
stupendous loss of capital, destruction of credit, 
paralysis of industry, arrest of progress in things 
spiritual as well as temporal, the shock to civilisation, 
and the crippling for a generation, probably for 
several generations, possibly for ever, of the victorious 
country in its race with rivals who have wisely stood 
aside from the fray. These arguments may conceiv- 
ably be true, may in no particular be over-coloured, 
or an under-valuation, either of the good which has 
been attained by battle, or of the evils which have 
been escaped. But they would be difficult to estab- 
lish even before an unbiassed court, and they are 
infinitely more difficult to stamp upon popular 
belief. 

It is not sufficient either with statesmen or 
peoples to set before them a chain of reasoning which 
is logically unanswerable. Somehow or other the 
new faith which it is desired to implant, must be 
rendered independent of logic and unassailable by 
logic. It must rise into a higher order of convictions 
than the intellectual before it can begin to operate 
upon human affairs. For it is matched against 
opinions which have been held and acted upon so 
long, that they have become unquestionable save 
in purely academic discussions. At those decisive 
moments, when action follows upon thought like a 
flash, conclusions which depend upon a train of 
reasoning are of no account : instinct will always 
get the better of any syllogism. 



8 THE CAUSES OF WAR 

part i So when nations are hovering on the brink of war, 

Chapter it is impulse, tradition, or some stuff of the imagina- 
L tion — misused deliberately, as sometimes happens, 
Peace and by crafty manipulators — which determines action 
much more often than the business calculations of 
shopkeepers and economists. Some cherished in- 
stitution seems to be threatened. Some nationality 
supposed — very likely erroneously — to be of the same 
flesh and blood as ourselves, appears — very likely 
on faulty information — to be unjustly oppressed. 
Two rival systems of civilisation, of morals, of religion, 
approach one another like thunder-clouds and come 
together in a clash. Where is the good at such times 
of casting up sums, and exhibiting profit-and-loss 
accounts to the public gaze ? People will not listen, 
for in their view considerations of prosperity and 
the reverse are beside the question. Wealth, comfort, 
even life itself, are not regarded ; nor are the possible 
sufferings of posterity allowed to count any more than 
the tribulations of to-day. In the eyes of the people 
the matter is one of duty not of interest. When men 
fight in this spirit the most lucid exposition of material 
drawbacks is worse than useless ; for the national 
mood, at such moments, is one of self-sacrifice. The 
philosopher, or the philanthropist, is more likely to 
feed the flames than to put them out when he proves 
the certainty of loss and privation, and dwells upon 
the imminent peril of ruin and destruction. 

The strength of the fighter is the strength of his 
faith. Each new Gideon who goes out against the 
Midianites fancies that the sword of the Lord is in 
his hand. He risks all that he holds dear, in order 
that he may pull down the foul images of Baal and 
build up an altar to Jehovah s in order that his race 



THE MOTIVES OF NATIONS 9 

may not be shorn of its inheritance, in order that it Part i. 
may hold fast its own laws and institutions, and not Chapter 

pass under the yoke of the Gentiles. This habit of '_ 

mind is unchanging throughout the ages. What Peace and 
moved men to give their lives at Marathon moved 
them equally, more than a thousand years later, to 
offer the same sacrifice under the walls of Tours. 
It is still moving them, after yet another thousand 
years and more have passed away, in the plains of 
Flanders and the Polish Marshes. 

When the Persian sought to force the dominion 
of his ideals upon the Greek, the states of Hellas made 
head against him from the love and honour in which 
they held their own. When the successors of the 
Prophet, zealous for their faith, confident in the 
protection of the One God, drove the soldiers of the 
Cross before them from the passes of the Pyrenees to 
the vineyards of Touraine, neither side would have 
listened with any patience to a dissertation upon the 
inconveniences resulting from a state of war and upon 
the economic advantages of peace. It was there one 
faith against another, one attitude towards life against 
another, one system of manners, customs, and laws 
against another. When a collision occurs in this region 
of human affairs there is seldom room for compromise 
or adjustment. Things unmerchantable cannot be 
purchased with the finest of fine gold. 

In these instances, seen by us from far off, the truth 
of this is easily recognised. But what some of our 
recent moralists have overlooked, is the fact that 
forces of precisely the same order exist in the world 
of to-day, and are at work, not only among the fierce 
Balkan peoples, in the resurgent empire of Japan, 
and in the great military nations — the French, the 



war 



10 THE CAUSES OF WAR 

Part i. Germans, and the Russians — but also in America 

Chapter and England. The last two pride themselves upon 

L a higher civilisation, and in return are despised by 

Peace and the prophets of militarism as worshippers of material 

gain. The unfavourable and the flattering estimate 

agree, however, upon a single point — in assuming that 

our own people and those of the United States are 

unlikely to yield themselves to unsophisticated 

impulse. This assumption is wholly false. 

If we search carefully, we shall find everywhere 
underlying the great struggles recorded in past history, 
no less than those which have occurred, and are now 
occurring, in our own time, an antagonism of one 
kind or another between two systems, visions, or 
ideals, which in some particular were fundamentally 
opposed and could not be reconciled. State papers 
and the memoranda of diplomatists, when in due 
course they come to light, are not a little apt to 
confuse the real issues, by setting forth a diary of minor 
incidents and piquant details, not in their true pro- 
portions, but as they appeared at the moment of their 
occurrence to the eyes of harassed and suspicious 
officials. But even so, all the emptying of desks and 
pigeon-holes since the great American Civil War, has 
not been able to cover up the essential fact, that in 
this case a million lives were sacrificed by one of the 
most intelligent, humane, and practical nations upon 
earth, and for no other cause than that there was an 
irreconcilable difference amongst them, with regard 
to what St. Paul has called ' the substance of things 
hoped for.' On the one side there was an ideal of 
Union and a determination to make it prevail : on 
the other side there was an ideal of Independence 
and an equal determination to defend it whatsoever 



VIRTUES OF THE WAR SPIRIT 11 

might be the cost. If war on such grounds be possible Part i. 
within the confines of a single nation, nurtured in Chapter 

the same traditions, and born to a large extent of the 

same stock, how futile is the assurance that economic Peace aud 
and material considerations will suffice to make war 
impossible between nations, who have not even the 
tie of a common mother-tongue ! 

A collision may occur, as we know only too well, 
even although one of two vessels be at anchor, if it 
happens to lie athwart the course of the other. It 
was therefore no security against war that British 
policy did not aim at any aggrandisement or seek for 
any territorial expansion. The essential questions 
were — had we possessions which appeared to obstruct 
the national aspirations and ideals of others ; and 
did these others believe that alone, or in alliance, 
they had the power to redress the balance ? 

The real difficulty which besets the philanthropist 
in his endeavour to exorcise the spirit of war is caused, 
not by the vices of this spirit, but by its virtues. In 
so far as it springs from vainglory or cupidity, it is 
comparatively easy to deal with. In so far as it is 
base, there is room for a bargain. It can be com- 
pounded with and bought off, as we have seen before 
now, with some kind of material currency. It will 
not stand out for very long against promises of 
prosperity and threats of dearth. But where, as at 
most crises, this spirit is not base, where its impulse 
is not less noble, but more noble than those which 
influence men day by day in the conduct of their 
worldly affairs, where the contrast which presents 
itself to their imagination is between duty on the 
one hand and gain on the other, between self-sacrifice 
and self-interest, between their country's need and 



12 THE CAUSES OF WAR 

Pabt i. their own ease, it is not possible to quench the fires 
Chaptee by appeals proceeding from a lower plane. The 

philanthropist, if he is to succeed, must take still 
Peace and higher ground, and higher ground than this it is not 

a very simple matter to discover. 



war 



CHAPTER II 

THE OUTBREAK OF WAR 

When war came, it came suddenly. A man who part i. 
had happened to fall sick of a fever on St. Swithin's Chapter 
day 1914, but was so far on the way to convalescence IL 
four weeks later as to desire news of the outside The out- 
world, must have been altogether incredulous of the war. 
tidings which first greeted his ears. 

When he fell ill the nations were at peace. The 
townspeople of Europe were in a holiday humour, 
packing their trunks and portmanteaus for ' land 
travel or sea-faring.' The country people were 
getting in their harvest or looking forward hopefully 
to the vintage. Business was prosperous. Credit 
was good. Money, in banking phraseology, was 
' cheap.' The horror of the Serajevo assassinations 
had already faded almost into oblivion. At the 
worst this sensational event was only an affair of 
police. Such real anxiety as existed in the United 
Kingdom had reference to Ireland. 

We can imagine the invalid's first feeble question 
on public affairs : — ' What has happened in Ulster ? ' — 
The answer, ' Nothing has happened in Ulster.' — The 
sigh of relief with which he sinks back on his pillows. 

When, however, they proceed to tell him what 
has happened, elsewhere than in Ulster, during the 

13 



war, 



14 THE CAUSES OF WAE 

part i. four weeks while they have been watching by his bed- 
Chaptek side, will he not fancy that his supposed recovery is 
IL only an illusion, and that he is still struggling with 
The out- the phantoms of his delirium ? 

For what will they have to report ? That the 
greater part of the world which professes Christianity 
has called out its armies ; that more than half Europe 
has already joined battle ; that England, France, 
Russia, Belgium, Servia, and Montenegro on the one 
side are ranged against Germany and Austria on the 
other. Japan, they will tell him, is upon the point of 
declaring war. The Turk is wondering if, and when, 
he may venture to come in; while the Italian, the 
Roumanian, the Bulgar, the Greek, the Dutchman, the 
Dane, and the Swede are reckoning no less anxiously 
for how short or long a period it may still be safe for 
them to stand out. Three millions of men, or there- 
abouts — a British Army included — are advancing 
against one another along the mountain barriers of 
Luxemburg, Lorraine, and Alsace. Another three 
millions are engaged in similar evolutions among the 
lakes of East Prussia, along the river-banks of Poland, 
and under the shadow of the Carpathians. A large 
part of Belgium is already devastated, her villages 
are in ashes or flames, her eastern fortresses invested, 
her capital threatened by the invader. 

Nine-tenths or more of the navies of the world 
are cleared for action, and are either scouring the 
seas in pursuit, or are withdrawn under the shelter 
of land-batteries watching their opportunity for a 
stroke. Air-craft circle by day and night over the 
cities, dropping bombs, with a careless and impartial 
aim, upon buildings both private and public, both 
sacred and profane, upon churches, palaces, hospitals. 



A NIGHTMARE 15 

and arsenals. The North Sea and the Baltic are Part i. 
sown with mines. The trade of the "greater part Chapter 

of industrial Europe is at a standstill ; the rest is '_ 

disorganised ; while the credit and finances, not merely The out - 

. break of 

of Europe, but of every continent, are temporarily war. 
in a state either of chaos or paralysis. 

To the bewildered convalescent all this may well 
have seemed incredible. It is hardly to be wondered 
at if he concluded that the fumes of his fever were 
not yet dispersed, and that this frightful phantasm- 
agoria had been produced, not by external realities, 
but by the disorders of his own brain. 

How long it might have taken to convince him 
of the truth and substance of these events we may 
judge from our own recent experience. How long 
was it after war broke out, before even we, who had 
watched the trouble brewing through all its stages, 
ceased to be haunted, even in broad daylight, by the 
feeling that we were asleep, and that the whole thing 
was a nightmare which must vanish when we awoke ? 
We were faced (so at least it seemed at frequent 
moments) not by facts, but by a spectre, and one by 
no means unfamiliar — the spectre of Europe at 
war, so long dreaded by some, so scornfully derided 
by others, so often driven away, of late years so 
persistently reappearing. But this time the thing 
refused to be driven away. It sat, hunched up, with 
its head resting on its hands, as pitiless and inhuman 
as one of the gargoyles on a Gothic cathedral, staring 
through us, as if we were merely vapour, at something 
beyond. 

So late as Wednesday, July 29 — the day on 
which Austria declared war on Servia — there was 



16 THE CAUSES OF WAR 

Part i. probably not one Englishman in a hundred who 
Chapter believed it possible that, within a week, his own 
IL country would be at war ; still less, that a few days 
The out- later the British Army would be crossing the Channel 
war. to assist France and Belgium in repelling a German 
invasion. To the ordinary man — and not merely 
to the ordinary man, but equally to the press, and the 
great majority of politicians — such things were un- 
thinkable until they occurred. Unfortunately, the 
inability to think a thing is no more a protection 
against its occurrence than the inability to see a thing 
gives security to the ostrich. 

The sequence of events which led up to the 
final disaster is of great importance, although very 
far from being in itself a full explanation of the 
causes. 

On June 28, 1914, the heir to the throne of Austria- 
Hungary, together with his consort, was murdered 
by a young Bosnian at Serajevo, not far distant from 
the southern frontier. The Imperial authorities in- 
stituted a secret enquiry into the circumstances of 
the plot, as a result of which they professed to have 
discovered that it had been hatched at Belgrade, 
that Government officials were implicated in it, and 
that so far from being reprobated, it was approved 
by Servian public opinion. 1 

On Thursday, July 23 — a month after the tragedy 
— Austria suddenly delivered an ultimatum to Servia, 
and demanded an acceptance of its terms within 
forty-eight hours. The demands put forward were 

1 There is perhaps as much reason, certainly no more, for believing that 
an official clique at Belgrade plotted the Serajevo murders, as that an 
official clique at Vienna connived at them, by deliberately withdrawing 
police protection from the unfortunate and unpopular Archduke on the 
occasion of his visit to a notorious hotbed of sedition. 



THE SERVIAN REPLY 17 

harsh, humiliating, and unconscionable. They were Part i. 
such as could not have been accepted, as they stood, Chapter 

by any nation which desired to preserve a shred of 1 

its independence. They had been framed with the The out- 
deliberate intention, either of provoking a refusal war. 
which might afford a pretext for war, or of procuring 
an acceptance which would at once reduce the Servian 
Kingdom to the position of a vassal. Even in Berlin 
it was admitted * that this ultimatum asked more 
than it was reasonable to expect Servia to yield. 
But none the less, there can be but little doubt that 
the German ambassador at Vienna saw and approved 
the document before it was despatched, and it seems 
more than likely that he had a hand in drafting it. 
It also rests on good authority that the German 
Kaiser was informed beforehand of the contents, 
and that he did not demur to its presentation. 2 

On the evening of Saturday, July 25, the Servian 
Government, as required, handed in its answer. The 
purport of this, when it became known to the world, 
excited surprise by the humility of its tone and the 
substance of its submission. Almost everything that 

1 Herr von Jagow " also admitted that the Servian Government could not 
' swallow certain of the Austro-Hungarian demands. . . . He repeated very 
1 earnestly that, though he had been accused of knowing all the contents 
' of that note, he had in fact no such knowledge." — Sir H. Rumbold at 
Berlin to Sir Edward Grey (White Paper, No. 18). 

2 " Although I am unable to verify it, I have private information that 
' the German Ambassador (i.e. at Vienna) knew the text of the Austrian 
' ultimatum to Servia before it was despatched and telegraphed it to the 
' German Emperor. I know from the German Ambassador himself that he 
' endorses every line of it." — British Ambassador at Vienna to Sir Edward 
Grey (White Paper, No. 95). (Cf. also White Book, Nos. 05 and 141 ; 
French Yellow Book, No. 87 ; Russian Orange Book, No. 41.) 

i( The German Ambassador (i.e. in London) read me a telegram from 
' the German Foreign Office saying that his Government had not known 
' beforehand, and had no more than other Powers to do with the stiff terms 
' of the Austrian note to Servia." — Sir Edward Grey to the British Am- 
bassador in Berlin (White Paper, No. 25). (Cf. also French Yellow Book, 
Nos. 17, 30, 36, 41, 57, and 04.) 



18 THE CAUSES OF WAR 

Part i. Austria had demanded was agreed to. What re- 
Chaptek mained outstanding was clearly not worth quarrelling 

'__ about, unless a quarrel were the object of the ulti- 

Tiieout- matum. The refusal, such as it was, did not close 
war. the door, but, on the contrary, contained an offer 

to submit the subjects of difference to the Hague 
Convention. 1 

The document was a lengthy one. The Austrian 
minister at Belgrade nevertheless found time to 
read it through, to weigh it carefully, to find it want- 
ing, to ask for his passports, and to catch his train, 
all within a period not exceeding three-quarters of 
an hour from the time at which it was put into his 
hands. 2 

When these occurrences became known, the 
English Foreign Minister immediately made proposals 
for a conference between representatives of Germany, 
France, Italy, and Great Britain, with the object 
of discovering some means of peaceful settlement. 3 
France and Italy promptly accepted his invitation. 4 
Germany, while professing to desire mediation, did 
not accept it. 5 Consequently Sir Edward Grey's 
effort failed ; and before he was able to renew it in 
any more acceptable form, Austria, acting with a 
promptitude almost unique in her annals, declared 
war upon Servia, and hostilities began. 

It is unnecessary to enter here into an examination 
of the feverish and fruitless attempts to preserve 
peace, which were made in various quarters during 
the next four and twenty hours. They present a 

1 Last paragraph of Reply of Servian Government to Austro-Hungarian 
note. 2 White Paper, Nos. 20 and 23. 

» White Paper, No. 36. * White Paper, Nos. 35, 42, and 52. 

5 White Paper, Nos. 43 and 71. Cf. also German White Book, Nos. 
12 and 15. 



MOBILISATION 19 

most pathetic appearance, like the efforts of a crew, part i. 

sitting with oars unshipped, arguing, exhorting, and Chapter 

imploring, while their boat drifts on to the smooth _^_ 

lip of the cataract. Tbe out- 

break of 



war. 



Russia ordered the mobilisation of her Southern 
armies, alleging that she could not stand by while 
a Slav nation was being crushed out of existence, 
despite the fact that it had made an abject 
submission for an unproved offence. 1 

Subsequently, on Friday, July 31, Russia — 
having, as she considered, reasons for believing that 
Germany was secretly mobilising her whole forces — 
proceeded to do likewise. 2 

Germany simultaneously declared ' a state of war ' 
within her own territories, and a veil instantly fell 
upon all her internal proceedings. She demanded 
that Russia should cease her mobilisation, and as 
no answer which satisfied her was forthcoming, but 
only an interchange of telegrams between the two 
sovereigns — disingenuous on the one side and not 
unreasonably suspicious on the other — Germany 
declared war on Russia on Saturday, August 1. 

On Saturday and Sunday, war on a grand scale 
being by this time certain, the chief interest centred 
in questions of neutrality. Germany enquired of 
France whether she would undertake to stand aside — 
knowing full well beforehand that the terms of the 
Dual Alliance compelled the Republic to lend assist- 
ance if Russia were attacked by more than one power. 

1 White Paper, No. 113; Russian Orange Book, No. 77; French 
Yellow Book, No. 95. 

2 These suspicions were well founded. German mobilisation began at 
least two days earlier (White Paper, No. 113 ; French Yellow Book, Nos. 
60, 88, 89, and 106). 



20 THE CAUSES OF WAE 

Part i. Sir Edward Grey enquired of France and Germany 

Chapter if they would undertake to respect the integrity of 

1 Belgium. France replied in the affirmative. Germany 

The out- declined to commit herself, and this was rightly 

break of 



construed as a refusal. 1 



While this matter was still the subject of diplo- 
matic discussion the German Army advanced into 
the Grand Duchy of Luxemburg, and was correctly 
reported as having entered Belgian territory near 
Liege and French territory near Cirey. 

On the evening of Sunday, August 2, the German 
Government presented an ultimatum to Belgium 2 
demanding free passage for its troops, thereby 
putting its intentions beyond all doubt. 

On the same day Italy issued a declaration of 
neutrality, making it clear that, although a member 
of the Triple Alliance, she did not consider herself 
bound to support her allies in a war of aggression. 3 

Meanwhile Germany had been making enquiries 
as to the attitude of England, and, startled to discover 
that this country might not be willing tamely to 
submit to the violation of Belgium and invasion of 
France, proceeded to state, under cross-examina- 
tion, the price she was prepared to pay, or at any 
rate to promise, for the sake of securing British 
neutrality. 4 

On Tuesday, August 4, the British Ambassador 
at Berlin presented an ultimatum which demanded 
an assurance, before midnight, that the integrity of 
Belgium would not be violated. The answer was 
given informally at a much earlier hour by the 

1 White Paper, Nos. 114, 122, 123, and 125. 

2 Belgian Grey Book, No. 20 ; French Yellow Book, No. 141. 

3 White Paper, No. 152 ; French Yellow Book, No. 124. 

4 White Paper, Nos. 85 and 123. 



ENGLAND DECLARES WAR 21 

bombardment of Liege ; and shortly before midnight part i. 
England declared war on Germany. 1 Chapter 

Two days later Austria declared herself to be at J • 
war with Russia, and within a week from that date The out- 

orcfik of 

Great Britain and France issued a similar declaration war. 
against Austria. 

1 " I found the Chancellor very agitated. His Excellency at once 
' began a harangue which lasted for about twenty minutes. He said that 
' the step taken by His Majesty's Government was terrible to a degree : 
' just for a word — ' neutrality,' a word which in war time had so often been 
' disregarded — just for a scrap of paper Great Britain was going to make 
' war on a kindred nation, who desired nothing better than to be friends 
'with her." — British Ambassador at Berlin to Sir Edward Grey (White 
Paper, No. 160). 



war 



CHAPTER III 

WHO WANTED WAR ? 

Part i. Such is the chronological order of events ; but on 

Chapter the face of it, it explains little of the underlying 

IIL causes of this conflagration. Why with the single 

who exception of Italy had all the great naval and military 

powers of Europe, together with several smaller 

nations, suddenly plunged into war ? Which of 

the combatants wanted war ? ... To the latter 

question the answer can be given at once and with 

certainty — save Germany and Austria no nation 

wanted war, and even Germany and Austria did not 

want this war. 

Whatever opinion we may entertain of the Servian 
character or of her policy in recent times, it is at 
all events certain that she did not desire war with 
Austria. That she submitted to the very depths of 
humiliation in order to avoid war cannot be doubted 
by any one who has read her reply to the demands 
put forward by Vienna. Only a few months since, 
she had emerged from two sanguinary wars — the first 
against Turkey and the second against Bulgaria — 
and although victory had crowned her arms in both 
of these contests, her losses in men and material had 
been very severe. 

That Russia did not desire war was equally plain. 

22 



DESIRE FOR PEACE 23 

She was still engaged in repairing the gigantic losses part i. 
which she had sustained in her struggle with Japan. Chapter 
At least two years must elapse before her new fleet 
would be in a condition to take the sea, and it was who 
generally understood that at least as long a period W ar? ec 
would be necessary, in order to carry through the 
scheme of reorganisation by which she hoped to place 
her army in a state of efficiency. Whatever might 
be the ultimate designs of Russia, it was altogether 
incredible that she would have sought to bring about 
a war, either at this time or in the near future. 

Russia, like England, had nothing to gain by war. 
Her development was proceeding rapidly. For years 
to come her highest interest must be peace. A 
supreme provocation was necessary in order to make 
her draw the sword. Such a provocation had been 
given in 1909 when, ignoring the terms of the Treaty 
of Berlin, Austria had formally annexed the provinces 
of Bosnia and Herzegovina. But at that time 
Russia's resources were not merely unprepared ; 
they were utterly exhausted. Menaced simultane- 
ously by Vienna and Berlin, she had been forced on 
that occasion to stand by, while her prestige in the 
Balkan peninsula suffered a blow which she was 
powerless to ward off. Now a further encroachment 
was threatened from the same quarters. A Slav 
power which looked to St. Petersburg x for protection 
was to be put under the heel of Austria. 

Nor can any one believe that France wanted war. 
It is true that for a year, or rather more, after the 
Agadir episode 2 the spirit of France was perturbed. 
But no Foreign Office in the world — least of all that 

1 The name of the Russian capital was not changed until after the 
declaration of war, and therefore St. Petersburg is used in this chapter 
instead of Petrograd. * July-September 1911. 



24 THE CAUSES OF WAR 

Part i. of Germany — was so ill-informed as to believe that 

Chapter the sporadic demonstrations, which occurred in the 

1 press and elsewhere, were caused by any eagerness 

wh ° , for adventure or any ambition of conquest. They 

wanted J ■«• •> 

war? were due, as every calm observer was aware, to one 
thing and one thing only — the knowledge that the 
Republic had come to the very end of her human 
resources ; that all her sons who were capable of 
bearing arms had already been enrolled in her army ; 
that she could do nothing further to strengthen her 
defences against Germany, who up to that time, had 
taken for military training barely one half of her 
available male population, and who was now engaged 
in increasing her striking power both by land and sea. 

The cause of this restlessness in France was the 
fear that Germany was preparing an invincible 
superiority and would strike so soon as her weapon was 
forged. If so, would it not be better for France to 
strike at once, while she had still a fighting chance, 
and before she was hopelessly outnumbered ? But 
this mood, the product of anxiety and suspense, 
which had been somewhat prevalent in irresponsible 
quarters during the autumn of 1912 and the early 
part of the following year, had passed away. Partly 
it wore itself out ; partly popular interest was diverted 
to other objects of excitement. 

France, during the twelve months preceding 
Midsummer 1914, had been singularly quiescent as 
regards foreign affairs. Her internal conditions 
absorbed attention. Various events had conspired 
to disturb public confidence in the fidelity of her 
rulers, and in the adequacy of their military prepara- 
tions. The popular mood had been sobered, dis- 
quieted, and scandalised to such a point that war, 



THE CASE OF BELGIUM 25 

so far from being sought after, was the thing of all Part i. 
others which France most wished to avoid. Chapter 

It is unnecessary to waste words in establishing '_ 

the aversion of Belgium from war. There was wh ° 

° ... wanted 

nothing which she could hope to gain by it m any war'? 
event. Suffering and loss — how great suffering and 
loss even Belgium herself can hardly have foreseen — 
were inevitable to her civil population, as well as to 
her soldiers, whether the war went well or ill. Her 
territory lay in the direct way of the invaders, and 
was likely, as in times past, to become the ' cockpit 
of Europe.' She was asked to allow the free passage 
of the Germanic forces. She was promised restora- 
tion of her independence and integrity at the end of 
the war. But to grant this arrogant demand would 
have been to destroy her dynasty and wreck her 
institutions ; for what King or Constitution could 
have withstood the popular contempt for a govern- 
ment which acquiesced in national degradation ? 
And to believe the promise, was a thing only possible 
for simpletons ; for what was such an assurance 
worth, seeing that, at the very moment of the offer, 
Germany was engaged in breaking her former under- 
taking, solemnly guaranteed and recorded, that 
the neutrality of Belgium should be respected ? 
That the sympathies of Belgium would have been 
with France in any event cannot of course be doubted ; 
for a French victory threatened no danger, whereas 
the success of German arms was a menace to her 
independence, and a prelude to vassalage or absorp- 
tion in the Empire. 

Neither the British, people nor their Government 
wanted war. In the end they accepted it reluctantly, 
and only after most strenuous efforts had been made 



26 THE CAUSES OF WAR 

part i. to prevent its occurrence. To the intelligent foreign 
Chapter observer, however unfriendly, who has a thorough 

TTT • • • 

1 understanding of British interests, ideas, and habits 

m ° of mind this is self-evident. He does not need a 

wanted . ... 

war? White raper to prove it to him. 

It is clear that Austria wanted war — not this war 
certainly, but a snug little war with a troublesome 
little neighbour, as to the outcome of which, with the 
ring kept, there could be no possibility of doubt. 
She obviously hoped that indirectly, and as a sort of 
by-product of this convenient little war, she would 
secure a great victory of the diplomatic sort over 
her most powerful neighbour — a matter of infinitely 
more consequence to her than the ostensible object of 
her efforts. 

The crushing of Servia would mean the humiliation 
of Russia, and would shake, for a second time within 
five years, the confidence of the Balkan peoples in 
the power of the Slav Empire to protect its kindred 
and co-religionists against the aggression of the 
Teutons and Magyars. Anything which would lower 
the credit of Russia in the Balkan peninsula would 
be a gain to Austria. To her more ambitious states- 
men such an achievement might well seem to open 
the way for coveted expansions towards the Aegean 
Sea, which had been closed against her, to her great 
chagrin, by the Treaty of Bucharest. 1 To others, 
whose chief anxiety was to preserve peace in their own 
time, and to prevent the Austro-Hungarian State 
from splitting asunder, the repression of Servia seemed 
to promise security against the growing unrest and 
discontent of the vast Slav population which was 
included in the Empire. 

1 August 1913. 



AUSTRIAN ILL-FORTUNE 27 

For something nearer two centuries than one the part i. 
Austro-Hungarian Empire has been miscalculating Chapter 

and suffering for its miscalculations, until its blunders '_ 

and ill-fortune have become a byword. Scheming Who 

e r k e i • mi wanted 

ever tor safety, Austria has never found it. The war? 
very modesty of her aim has helped to secure its own 
defeat. Her unvarying method has been a timid and 
unimaginative repression. In politics, as in most 
other human affairs, equilibrium is more easily at- 
tained by moving forward than by standing still. 
Austria has sought security for powers, and systems, 
and balances which were worn out, unsuited to our 
modern world, and therefore incapable of being 
secured at all. The more she has schemed for safety 
the more precarious her integrity has become. There 
are things which scheming will never accomplish — 
things which for their achievement need a change of 
spirit, some new birth of faith or freedom. But in 
Vienna change in any direction is ill-regarded, and 
new births are ever more likely to be strangled in 
their cradles than to arrive at maturity. 

Distracted by the problem of her divers, discordant, 
and unwelded * races, Austria has always inclined to 
put her trust in schemers who were able to produce 
some plausible system, some ingenious device, some 
promising ladder of calculation, or miscalculation, for 
reaching the moon without going through the clouds. 
In the present case there can be no doubt that she 
allowed herself to be persuaded by her German 
neighbours that Russia was not in a position to make 

1 The total population of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, including 
Bosnia-Herzegovina, is roughly 50 millions. Of these 11 millions are 
Germans and 10 millions Magyars. About 24 millions are composed of a 
strange variety of Slav races. The remaining 5 millions consist of Italians, 
Roumanians, and Jews. 



28 THE CAUSES OF WAR 

Part i. an effective fight, and would therefore probably stand 

Chapter by, growling and showing her teeth. Consequently 

IIL it was safe to take a bold line ; to present Servia 

who w ith an ultimatum which had been made completely 

war? watertight against acceptance of the unconditional 

and immediate kind ; to reject any acceptance which 

was not unconditional and immediate ; to allow the 

Government of King Peter no time for second thoughts, 

the European Powers no time for mediation, her own 

Minister at Belgrade time only to give one hasty 

glance at the reply, call for his passports, and catch 

his train. So far as poor humanity can make certain 

of anything, Austria, with German approval and 

under German guidance, made certain of war with 

Servia. 

But the impression produced, when this matter 
first began to excite public attention, was some- 
what different. Foreign newspaper correspondents at 
Vienna and Berlin were specially well cared for after 
the Serajevo murders, and when the ultimatum was 
delivered, they immediately sent to England and 
elsewhere accounts of the position which made it 
appear, that the Austrian Government and people, 
provoked beyond endurance by the intrigues of 
Servia, had acted impetuously, possibly unwisely, 
but not altogether inexcusably. 

At this stage the idea was also sedulously put 
about that the Kaiser was behaving like a gentleman. 
It was suggested that Germany had been left very 
much in the dark until the explosion actually occurred, 
and that she was now paying the penalty of loyalty 
to an indiscreet friend, by suffering herself to be 
dragged into a quarrel in which she had neither 
interest nor concern. In these early days, when 



GERMANY USES AUSTRIA 29 

Sir Edward Grey was striving hopefully, if some- Part i. 
what innocently, after peace, it was assumed by Chapter 

the world in general, that Germany, for her own 1 

reasons, must desire, at least as ardently as the British Wll ° 
Foreign Minister, to find a means of escape from an war? 
exceedingly awkward position, and that she would 
accordingly use her great influence with her ally to 
this end. If there had been a grain of truth in this 
assumption, peace would have been assured, for 
France and Italy had already promised their support. 
But this theory broke down very speedily; and as 
soon as the official papers were published, it was 
seen never to have rested on the smallest basis of 
fact. 

So far from Germany having been dragged in 
against her will, it was clear that from the beginning 
she had been using Austria as an agent, who was 
not unwilling to stir up strife, but was only half- 
conscious of the nature and dimensions of the contest 
which was bound to follow. It is not credible that 
Germany was blind to the all-but-inevitable results 
of letting Austria loose to range around, of hallooing 
her on, and of comforting her with assurances of loyal 
support. But it may well be believed that Austria 
herself did not see the situation in the same clear 
light, and remained almost up to the last, under the 
delusion, which had been so industriously fostered 
by the German ambassador at Vienna, that Russia 
could not fight effectively and therefore would 
probably choose not to fight at all. 

But although Austria may have had no adequate 
conception of the consequences which her action 
would bring about, it is certain that Germany fore- 
saw them, with the single exception of British inter- 



30 THE CAUSES OF WAE 

pabt i. vention ; that what she foresaw she also desired ; and 
Chapter further, that at the right moment she did her part, 
IIL boldly but clumsily, to guard against any miscarriage 
who of her schemes. 

war ? d Germany continued to make light of all appre- 

hensions of serious danger from St. Petersburg ; 
but at the eleventh hour Austria appears suddenly 
to have realised for herself the appalling nature 
of the catastrophe which impended. Something 
happened ; what it was we do not know, and the 
present generation will probably never know. We 
may conjecture, however — but it is only conjecture 
— that by some means or other the intrigues of 
the war cabal at Vienna — the instrument of German 
policy, owing more fealty to the Kaiser than to 
their own Emperor — had been unmasked. In hot 
haste they were disavowed, and Austria opened 
discussions with Russia ' in a perfectly friendly 
manner,' x and with good hopes of success, as to how 
the catastrophe might still be averted. 

On Thursday, July 30, we are informed, the 
tension between Vienna and St. Petersburg had 
greatly relaxed. An arrangement compatible with 
the honour and interests of both empires seemed 
almost in sight when, on the following day, Germany 
suddenly intervened with ultimatums to France and 
Russia, of a kind to which only one answer was 
possible. The spirit of the Ems telegram 2 had 
inebriated a duller generation. " A few days' delay," 
our Ambassador at Vienna concludes, " might in all 

1 White Paper, No. 161. 

2 A harmless and unprovocative telegram from the King of Prussia to 
Bismarck in July 1870 was, by the latter, so altered in tone that when 
published it achieved the intention of its editor and served as ' a red rag 
to the Gallic bull ' and brought about the declaration of war by Napoleon III. 
— Bismarck's Reflections and Reminiscences, vol. ii. p. 100. 



SIR EDWARD GREY 31 

' probability have saved Europe from one of the Part i. 
' greatest calamities in history." * Chapter 

As we turn over the official pages in which the IIL 
British Government has set out its case, we are who 
inclined to marvel — knowing what we now know — S? ec 
that our Foreign Minister should have shown so 
much zeal and innocence in pleading the cause of 
peace on high grounds of humanity, and with a faith, 
apparently unshaken to the last, that in principle 
at least, the German Government were in full agree- 
ment with his aims. The practical disadvantages 
of being a gentleman are that they are apt to make 
a man too credulous and not sufficiently inquisitive. 
Sir Edward Grey acted according to his nature. 
His miscalculation was one which his fellow-country- 
men have not hesitated to forgive. But clearly he 
misjudged the forces which were opposed to him. 
He was deceived by hollow assurances. He beat 
hopefully, but vainly and pathetically, against a 
door which was already barred and bolted, and 
behind which (could he but have seen) the Kaiser, 
with his Ministers and Staff, was wholly absorbed in 
the study of war maps and tables of mobilisation. 

Sir Edward Grey failed to prevent war, and in 
the circumstances it is hardly to be wondered at. 
But if he failed in one direction he succeeded in 
another. His whole procedure from first to last 
was so transparently disinterested and above board 
that, when war did actually come upon us, it found 
us, not merely as a nation, but also as an Empire, 
more united than we have ever been at any crisis, 
since the Great Armada was sighted off Plymouth 
Sound. English people felt that whatever else there 

1 White Paper, No. 161. 



war 



32 THE CAUSES OF WAR 

part i. might be to reproach themselves with, they at any 

Chapter rate went into the fight with clean hands. What is 

even more remarkable, the people of all neutral 

who countries, with the possible exception of the rigid 

moralists of Constantinople, appeared for once to 

share the same opinion. 

This was a great achievement ; nearly, but not 
quite, the greatest of all. To have prevented war 
would have been a greater achievement still. . . . 
But was war inevitable ? Or was M. Sazonof right, 
when he said to our Ambassador, on the morning of 
the day when Servia replied to the Austrian ulti- 
matum, 1 that if Britain then took her stand firmly 
with France and Russia there would be no war ; but 
that if we failed them then, rivers of blood would 
flow, and in the end we should be dragged into war ? 2 
Sir Edward Grey refused to take this course. He 
judged that a pronouncement of such a character 
would appear in the light of a menace to the govern- 
ments of Germany and Austria, and also to public 
opinion in those countries ; that it would only stiffen 
their backs ; that a more hopeful way of proceeding 
was for England to deal with Germany as a friend, 
letting it be understood that if our counsels of modera- 
tion were disregarded, we might be driven most 
reluctantly into the camp of her enemies. To this, 
when it was urged by our Ambassador at St. Peters- 
burg, the Russian Minister only replied — and the 
words seem to have in them a note of tragedy and 
weariness, as if the speaker well knew that he was 
talking to deaf ears — that unfortunately Germany 
was convinced that she could count upon the neutrality 
of Britain. 3 

1 Saturday, July 25. 2 White Paper, No. 17. 3 Ibid. Nos. 17 and 44. 



SIR EDWARD GREY 33 

The alternative was to speak out as Mr. Lloyd part i. 
George spoke at the time of the Agadir crisis, ' to Chapter 

rattle the sabre,' and to take our stand ' in shining '_ 

armour ' beside the other two members of the Entente. who 

Sir Edward Grey believed that this procedure would mi ? 
not have the effect desired, but the reverse. Further, 
it would have committed this country to a policy 
which had never been submitted to it, and which it 
had never considered, far less approved, even in 
principle. The Agadir precedent could be dis- 
tinguished. There the danger which threatened 
France arose directly out of treaty engagements 
with ourselves. Here there was no such particular 
justification, but a wide general question of the safety 
of Europe and the British Empire. 

With regard to this wider question, notwithstand- 
ing its imminence for a good many years, the British 
Empire had not made up its mind, nor indeed had 
it ever been asked to do so by those in authority. 
Sir Edward Grey appears to have thought that, on 
democratic principles, he had not the right to make 
such a pronouncement as M. Sazonof desired; and 
that even if this pathway might have led to peace, it 
was one which he could not tread. 

The one alternative was tried, and failed. We 
proffered our good offices, we urged our counsels of 
moderation, all in vain. That, at any rate, is among 
the certainties. And it is also among the certainties 
that, although this alternative failed, it brought us 
two signal benefits, in the unity of our own people and 
the goodwill of the world. 

About the other alternative, which was not tried, 
we cannot of course speak with the .same sure- 
ness. If Sir Edward Grey had taken the step which 

D 



34 THE CAUSES OF WAR 

Part i. M. Sazonof desired him to take, he would at once have 
Chapter been vehemently opposed and denounced by a very 
IIL large body of his own fellow-countrymen, who, never 
who having been taken frankly into the confidence of 
war? the Government with regard to the foundations of 
British policy, were at this early stage of the pro- 
ceedings almost wholly ignorant of the motives and 
issues involved. This being so, if war had ensued, 
we should then have gone into it a divided instead 
of a united nation. On the other hand, if peace had 
ensued, it must have been a patched-up ill-natured 
peace ; and it is not improbable that Sir Edward 
Grey would have been driven from office by enemies 
in his own household, playing the game of Germany 
unconsciously, as on previous occasions, and would 
have brought the Cabinet down with him in his fall. 
For at this time, owing to domestic difficulties, the 
Government stood in a very perilous position, and it 
needed only such a mutiny, as a bold departure in 
foreign affairs would almost certainly have provoked 
among the Liberal party, to bring Mr. Asquith's 
government to an end. 

As one reads and re-reads the official documents 
in our present twilight, it is difficult to resist the 
conclusion that on the main point Sir Edward Grey 
was wrong and M. Sazonof right. Germany, with 
her eyes wide open, had determined on war with 
Russia and France, unless by Russia's surrender of 
her prestige in the Balkans — a surrender in its way 
almost as abject as that which had already been 
demanded of Servia — the results of victory could be 
secured without recourse to arms. Germany, never- 
theless, was not prepared for war with Britain. She 
was reckoning with confidence on our standing aside, 



THE CRIME OF GERMANY 35 

on our unwillingness and inability to intervene. 1 If it part i. 
had been made clear to her, that in case she insisted Chapter 

on pressing things to extremity, we should on no '_ 

account stand aside, she might then have eagerly Who 

. . wanted 

forwarded, instead of deliberately frustrating, war? 
Austria's eleventh-hour negotiations for an accom- 
modation with St. Petersburg. 

No one, except Germans, whose judgments, natur- 
ally enough, are disordered by the miscarriage of 
their plans, has dreamed of bringing the charge 
against Sir Edward Grey that he wished for war, or 
fomented it, or even that through levity or want of 
vigilance, he allowed it to occur. The criticism is, 
that although his intentions were of the best, and 
his industry unflagging, he failed to realise the 
situation, and to adopt the only means which might 
have secured peace. 

The charge which is not only alleged, but estab- 
lished against Austria is of a wholly different order. 
It is that she provoked war — blindly perhaps, and 
not foreseeing what the war would be, but at any 
rate recklessly and obstinately. 

The crime of which Germany stands accused is 
that she deliberately aimed at war, and that when 
there seemed a chance of her plan miscarrying, she 
promptly took steps to render peace impossible. 
Among neutral countries is there one, the public 
opinion of which has acquitted her ? And has not 
Italy, her own ally, condemned her by refusing 
assistance on the ground that this war is a war of 
German aggression ? 

1 A proof of this is the outburst of hatred in Germany against England 
so soon as we ranged ourselves with France and Russia. 



CHAPTER IV 

THE PENALTY OF NEGLIGENCE 

past i. The East has been drawn into the circle of this 
Chapter war as well as the West, the New World as well as 

1 the Old ; nor can any man feel certain, or even 

The hopeful, that the conflagration will be content to 

negligence, burn itself out where it is now raging, and will not 
spread across further boundaries. ... It is therefore 
no matter of surprise that people should be asking 
themselves — " Of what nature is this war ? Is it 
one of those calamities, like earthquake or tempest, 
drought or flood, which lawyers describe as ' the 
act of God ' ? Or is it a thing which, having been 
conceived and deliberately projected by the wit of 
man, could have been averted by human courage 
and judgment % Was this war, or was it not, in- 
evitable ? "... To which it may be answered, that 
no war is inevitable until it occurs ; and then every 
war is apt to make pretensions to that character. 

In old times it was the Fates, superior even to 
Zeus, who decreed wars. In later days wars were 
regarded as the will of God. And to-day professional 
interpreters of events are as ready as ever with 
explanations why this war was, in the nature of things, 
unavoidable. Whether the prevailing priesthood 
wears white robes and fillets, or rich vestments, or 

36 



WAS WAR INEVITABLE ? 37 

cassocks and Geneva bands, or the severer modern Part i. 
garb of the professor or politician, it appears to be Chapter 

equally prone to dogmatic blasphemy. There is no '_ 

proof that this war was pre-ordained either by a The _. , 

*- r J penalty of 

Christian God or by the laws of Pagan Nature. negligence. 

One may doubt if any war is inevitable. If 
statesmen can gain time the chances are that they 
will gain peace. This was the view of public opinion 
throughout the British Empire down to July 1914. 
It was in a special sense the view of the Liberal party ; 
and their view was endorsed, if not by the whole body 
of Unionists, at any rate by their leader, in terms which 
admitted of no misunderstanding. 1 It is also the point 
of view from which this book is written. . . . This 
war was not inevitable ; it could have been avoided, 
bub on one condition — if England had been prepared. 

England was not prepared either morally or 
materially. Her rulers had left her in the dark as 
to the dangers which surrounded her. They had 
neglected to make clear to her — probably even to 
themselves — the essential principles of British policy, 
and the sacrifices which it entailed. They had 
failed to provide armaments to correspond with 
this policy. When the crisis arose their hands 
were tied. They had to sit down hurriedly, and 
decipher their policy, and find out what it meant. 
Still more hurriedly they had to get it approved, 
not merely by their fellow-countrymen, but by their 
own colleagues — a work, if rumour 2 speaks truly, of 

1 " I hear it also constantly said — there is no use shutting our eyes or 
' ears to obvious facts — that owing to divergent interests, war some day or 
' other between this country and Germany is inevitable. I never believe in 
' these inevitable wars." — Mr. Bonar Law in England and Germany. 

2 Rumour finds confirmation in the White Paper ; also in an interview 
with Mr. Lloyd Ooorgo, reported in Pearson's Magazine. March 1915, p. 265, 
col. ii. 



38 THE CAUSES OF WAR 

Paeti. considerable difficulty. Then they found that one 

Chapter of the main supports was wanting ; and they had 
IV - to set to work frantically to make an army adequate 

Th e to their needs. 

SegMgJnce. But it was too late. By this time their policy 
had fallen about their ears in ruins. For their policy 
was the neutrality of Belgium, and that was already 
violated. Their policy was the defence of France, 
and invasion had begun. Their policy was peace, 
and peace was broken. The nation which would enj oy 
peace must be strong enough to enforce peace. 

The moods of nations pass like clouds, only more 
slowly. They bank up filled with menace ; we 
look again and are surprised to find that they have 
melted away as silently and swiftly as they came. 
One does not need to be very old to recall various 
wars, deemed at one time or another to be inevitable, 
which never occurred. In the ' sixties ' war with the 
second Empire was judged to be inevitable ; and along 
our coasts dismantled forts remain to this day as 
monuments of our fathers' firm belief in the imminence 
of an invasion. In the ' seventies,' and indeed until 
we had entered the present century, war with Russia 
was regarded as inevitable by a large number of 
well-informed people ; and for a part of this period 
war with the French Republic was judged to be no 
less so. Fortune on the whole was favourable. 
Circumstances changed. The sense of a common 
danger healed old* antagonisms. Causes of chronic 
irritation disappeared of themselves, or were removed 
by diplomatic surgery. And with the disappearance 
of these inflammatory centres, misunderstandings, 
prejudices, and suspicions began to vanish also. 



GERMAN JEALOUSY 39 

Gradually it became clear, that what had been mis- part i. 
taken on both sides for destiny was nothing more Chapter 

inexorable than a fit of temper, or a conflict of '_ 

business interests not incapable of adjustment. And The 
in a sense the German menace was less formidable negligence. 
than any of these others, for the reason that it was 
a fit of temper on one side only — a fit of temper, or 
megalomania. We became fully conscious of the 
German mood only after the end of the South African 
War, when its persistence showed clearly that it arose, 
not from any sympathy with the Dutch, but from some 
internal cause. When this cause was explained to us 
it seemed so inadequate, so absurd, so unreal, so con- 
trary to the facts, that only a small fraction of our 
nation ever succeeded in believing that it actually 
existed. We had been taught by Carlyle, that while 
the verities draw immortal life from the facts to 
which they correspond, the falsities have but a 
phenomenal existence, and a brief influence over 
the minds of men. Consequently the greater part 
of the British people troubled their heads very little 
about this matter, never thought things would come 
to a crisis, or lead to serious mischief ; but trusted 
always that, in due time, the ridiculous illusions of 
our neighbours would vanish and die of their own 
inanity. 

We listened with an equal wonder and weariness 
to German complaints that we were jealous of her 
trade and bent on strangling it ; that we grudged 
her colonial expansion, and were intriguing all the 
world over to prevent it ; that we had isolated her 
and ringed her round with hostile alliances. We 
knew that these notions were all entirely false. We 
knew that, so far from hampering German commerce, 



40 THE CAUSES OF WAR 

paet i. our Free Trade system in the United Kingdom, in 
Chapter the Dependencies, and in the Indian Empire had 
1 ' fostered it and helped its rapid and brilliant success 
The more than any other external factor. 

negligence. For fully thirty years from 1870 — during which 
period what remained of the uncivilised portions of 
the world was divided up, during which period also 
Germany was the most powerful nation in Europe, 
and could have had anything she wanted of these 
new territories almost for the asking — Bismarck and 
the statesmen of his school, engrossed mainly in the 
European situation, set little store by colonies, 
thought of them rather as expensive and dangerous 
vanities, and abstained deliberately from taking an 
energetic part in the scramble. We knew, that in Africa 
and the East, Germany had nevertheless obtained 
considerable possessions, and that it was, primarily 
her own fault that she had not obtained more. We 
assumed, no doubt very foolishly, that she must 
ultimately become aware of her absurdity in blaming 
us for her own neglect. We forgot human nature, 
and the apologue of the drunkard who cursed the 
lamp-post for its clumsiness in getting in his way. 

The British people knew that Germany was 
talking nonsense ; but unfortunately they never fully 
realised that she was sincere, and meant all the 
things she said. They thought she only half believed 
in her complaints, as a man is apt to do when ill- 
temper upsets his equanimity. They were confident 
that in the end the falsities would perish and the 
verities remain, and that in the fulness of time the 
two nations would become friends. 

As to this last the British people probably judged 
correctly ; but they entirely overlooked the fact, 



DANGERS OF ILL-TEMPER 41 

that if truth was to be given a chance of prevailing Part i. 
in the end, it was important to provide against Chapter 

mischief which might very easily occur in the mean- '_ 

time. Nor did their rulers, whose duty it was, ever The 

. . J penalty of 

warn them seriously 01 this necessity. negligence. 

When a man works himself up into a rage and 
proceeds to nourish a loaded revolver, something 
more is necessary for the security of the bystanders 
than the knowledge that his ill-temper does not 
rest upon a reasonable basis. War was not inevit- 
able, certainly ; but until the mood of Germany 
changed, it was exceedingly likely to occur unless 
the odds against the aggressor were made too formid- 
able for him to face. None of the governments, 
however, which have controlled our national destinies 
since 1900, ever developed sufficient energy to realise 
the position of affairs, or ever mustered up courage 
to tell the people clearly what the risks were, to state 
the amount of the premium which was required to 
cover the risks, and to insist upon the immediate 
duty of the sacrifice which imperial security in- 
exorably demanded. 



CHAPTER V 

PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY 

Part i. Although in a technical sense the present war was 

Chapter brought on by Austrian diplomacy, no one, in England 

v ' at least, is inclined to rate the moral responsi- 

Personai bility of that empire at the highest figure. It is in 

biiity. Germany that we find, or imagine ourselves to have 

found, not only the true and deep-seated causes of 

the war, but the immediate occasions of it. 

Not the least of our diificulties, however, is to 
decide the point — Who is Germany ? Who was 
her man of business ? Who acted for her in the 
matter of this war ? Who pulled the wires, or 
touched the button that set the conflagration blazing ? 
Was this the work of an individual or a camarilla ? 
Was it the result of one strong will prevailing, or of 
several wills getting to loggerheads — wills not particu- 
larly strong, but obstinate, and flustered by internal 
controversy and external events ? What actually 
happened — was it meant by the ' super-men ' to 
happen, or did it come as a shock — not upon ' super- 
men ' at all — but upon several groups of surprised 
blunderers ? These questions are not likely to be 
answered for a generation or more — until, if ever, 
the archives of Vienna and Berlin give up their 

42 



MEN OF LETTERS 43 

secrets — and it would therefore be idle to waste too Part i. 
much time in analysis of the probabilities. Chapter 

The immediate occasion of the catastrophe has '_ 

been variously attributed to the German court, army, Personal 

J " responsi- 

bureaucracy, professors, press, and people. If we are bffity. 
looking only for a single thing — the hand which lit the 
conflagration — and not for the profounder and more 
permanent causes and origins of the trouble, we can at 
once dismiss several of these suspects from the dock. 

Men of learning and letters, professors of every 
variety — a class which has been christened ' the 
Pedantocracy ' by unfriendly critics — may be all 
struck off the charge-sheet as unconcerned in the 
actual delinquency of arson. • 

In fact, if not in name, these are a kind of priest- 
hood, and a large part of their lives' work has been 
to spread among German youth the worship of the 
State under Hohenzollern kingship. It is impossible 
of course to make ' a silk purse out of a sow's ear,' 
a religion out of a self-advertising dynasty, or a god 
out of a machine. Consequently, except for mischief, 
their efforts have been mainly wasted. Over a long 
period of years, however, they have been engaged in 
heaping up combustibles. They have filled men's 
minds to overflowing with notions which are very 
liable to lead to war, and which indeed were designed 
for no other purpose than to prepare public opinion 
for just such a war as this. Their responsibility 
therefore is no light one, and it will be dealt with 
later. But they are innocent at all events of com- 
plicity in this particular exploit of fire-raising ; and 
if, after the event, they have sought to excuse, vindi- 
cate, and uphold the action of their rulers it would 
be hard measure to condemn them for that. 



44 THE CAUSES OF WAE 

pakt i. Nor did the press bring about the war. In other 
Chapter countries, where the press is free and irresponsible, it 

L has frequently been the prime mover in such mischief ; 

Personal b u t never in Germany. For in Germany the press is 

responsi- . J ... 

biiity. incapable of bringing about anything of the political 
kind, being merely an instrument and not a principal. 
Just as little can the charge of having produced 
the war be brought against the people. In other 
countries, where the people are used to give marching 
orders to their rulers, popular clamour has led to 
catastrophe of this kind more frequently than any 
other cause. But this, again, has never been so in 
Germany. The German people are sober, stedfast, 
and humble in matters of high policy. They have 
confidence in their rulers, believe what they are told, 
obey orders readily, but do not think of giving them. 
When war was declared, all Germans responded to the 
call of duty with loyalty and devotion. Nay, having 
been prepared for at least a generation, they welcomed 
war with enthusiasm. According to the lights which 
were given them to judge by, they judged every whit 
as rightly as our own people. The lights were false 
lights, hung out deliberately to mislead them and to 
justify imperial policy. But this was no fault of 
theirs. Moreover, the judgment which they came 
to with regard to the war was made after the event, 
and cannot therefore in any case be held responsible 
for its occurrence. This is a people's war surely 
enough, but just as surely, the people had no hand 
in bringing it about. 

The circle of the accused is therefore narrowed 
down to the Court, the Army, and the Bureaucracy. 
And there we must leave it for the present — a joint 
indictment against all three. But whether these 



GERMAN MILITARY OPINION 45 

parties were guilty, all three in equal measure, we parti. 
cannot conjecture with the least approach to certainty. Chapter 
Nor can we even say precisely of what they were _^_ 
guilty — of misunderstanding — of a quarrel among Personal 
themselves — of a series of blunders — or of a crime so SiuJ?"" 
black and deliberate, that no apologist will be able 
ever to delete it from the pages of history. On all 
this posterity must be left to pronounce. 

It is only human nevertheless to be curious about 
personalities. Unfortunately for the satisfaction of 
this appetite, all is darkness as to the German Army. 
We may suspect that the Prussian junker, or country 
gentleman, controls and dominates it. But even as 
to this we may conceivably be wrong. The military 
genius of some Hanoverian, Saxon, or Bavarian 
may possess the mastery in council. As to the real 
heads of the army, as to their individual characters, 
and their potency in directing policy we know nothing 
at all. After nine months of war, we have arrived 
at no clear notion, even with regard to their relative 
values as soldiers in the field. We have even less 
knowledge as to their influence beforehand in shaping 
and deciding the issues of war and peace. 

This much, however, we may reasonably deduce 
from Bernhardi and other writers — that military 
opinion had been anxious for some considerable 
number of years past, and more particularly since 
the Agadir incident, 1 lest war, which it regarded as 
ultimately inevitable, should be delayed until the 
forces ranged against Germany, especially upon her 
Eastern frontier, were too strong for her to cope with. 

In the pages of various official publications, and 
in newspaper reports immediately before and after 

1 July 1911. 



46 THE CAUSES OF WAR 

part i. war began, we caught glimpses of certain characters 

Chapter at work ; but these were not professional soldiers ; 

v - they were members of the Court and the Bureaucracy. 

Personal Herr von Bethmann-Hollweg, the Imperial Chan- 

biiSy DS1 " cellor, comes upon the scene — a harassed and indignant 

official — sorely flustered — not by any means master 

of his temper — not altogether certain of his facts — 

in considerable doubt apparently as to whether 

things have not passed behind his back which he 

ought to have been told of by higher powers, but 

was not. He appears to us as a diligent and faithful 

servant, — one who does not seek to impose his own 

decisions, but to excuse, justify, and carry out, 

if he can, decisions which have been made by others, 

more highly placed and greedier of responsibility 

than himself. 

Herr von Jagow, the Foreign Minister, is much 
affected. He drops tears — or comes somewhere near 
dropping them — over the lost hopes of a peaceful 
understanding between England and Germany. We 
can credit the sincerity of his sorrow all the more 
easily, for the reason that Herr von Jagow behaves 
throughout the crisis as the courteous gentleman ; 
while others, who by position were even greater 
gentlemen, forget momentarily, in their excitement, 
the qualities which are usually associated with that 
title. 

Then there is the German Ambassador at Vienna 
— obviously a firebrand — enjoying, one imagines, 
the confidence of the war parties in both capitals : 
also apparently a busy intriguer. The documents 
show him acting behind the back of the Berlin Foreign 
Office, and communicating direct with the Kaiser. 
We gather very clearly that he egged on the 



PRINCE LICHNOWSKY 47 

statesmen of Vienna, with great diligence and success, part i. 
to press Servia to extremes, and to shear time so Chapter 
short that peace-makers had nothing left to catch _Zl 
hold of. Russia, he assured them, would never Personal 
carry her opposition to the point of war. Even if baity, 
she did so, he argued with much plausibility, she 
would be negligible. For she stood midway in a 
great military and naval reformation, than which 
no situation is more deplorable for the purposes of 
carrying on a campaign. 

When Prince Lichnowsky, the German Ambas- 
sador in London, took his departure at the outbreak 
of war, he probably left no single enemy behind him. 
A simple, friendly, sanguine figure, with a pardonable 
vanity which led him to believe the incredible. He 
produced what is called in the cant of the day ' an 
atmosphere,' mainly in drawing-rooms and newspaper 
offices, but occasionally, one conjectures, even in 
Downing Street itself. His artistry was purely in 
air and touched nothing solid. He was useful to 
his employers, mainly because he put England off 
her guard. He would not have been in the least 
useful if he had not been mainly sincere. 

. But though he was useful to German policy, he 
was not trusted by the powers in Berlin to attend to 
their business at the Court of St. James's except 
under strict supervision. What precisely were the 
duties of Baron von Kuhlmann, Councillor to the 
Embassy ? He was always very cheerful, and oblig- 
ing, and ready to smooth any little difficulty out 
of the way. On the other hand, he was also very 
deft at inserting an obstacle with an air of perfect 
innocence, which imposed on nearly every one — even 
occasionally on the editors of newspapers. For 



48 



THE CAUSES OF WAE 



Part I. 

Chapter 
V. 

Personal 
responsi- 
bility. 



some reason, however, very few people were willing 
to accept this plausible diplomatist's assurances 
without a grain or two of salt. Indeed quite a large 
number were so misled by their prejudices against 
him, that they were convinced his prime vocation 
was that of a spy — a spy on the country to which he 
was accredited and on the Ambassador under whom 
he served. 1 

We know more of the Kaiser than of any of these 
others, and we have known him over a much longer 
period. And yet our knowledge of him has never 
enabled us to forecast his actions with any certainty. 
British ministers and diplomatists, whose business it 
is to gauge, not only the muzzle-velocity of eminent 
characters, but also the forces of their recoil, never 
seem to have arrived at any definite conclusions with 
regard to this baffling personality. Whatever he 
did or did not do, they were always surprised by it, 
which gives us some measure of their capacity if not 
of his. 

The Kaiser is pre-eminently a man of moods. 
At one time he is Henry the Fifth, at another Richard 
the Second. Upon occasions he appears as Hamlet, 
cursing fate which impels him to make a decision. 
Within the same hour he is Autolycus crying up his 
wares with an unfeigned cheerfulness. He is possessed 
by the demon of quick-change and restlessness. We 
learn on good authority that he possesses an almost 

1 Prussian policy appears to be modelled upon the human body. 
Just as man is endowed with a duality of certain organs — eyes, nostrils, 
lungs, kidneys, etc. — so Prussian policy appears to proceed upon the 
principle of a double diplomatic representation, two separate Foreign 
Office departments, etc., etc. It is no doubt an excellent plan to have a 
second string to your bow ; but it is not yet clear how far this can be carried 
with advantage in delicate negotiations without destroying confidence in 
your sincerity. 



THE KAISER 49 

incredible number of uniforms which he actually Part i. 
wears, and of royal residences which he occasionally Chapter 

inhabits. He clothes himself suitably for each brief '_ 

occasion, and sleeps rarely, if reports can be believed, Personal 

. i i -,, responsi- 

tor more than two nights together under the same wiity. 
roof. He is like an American millionaire in his fond- 
ness for rapid and sudden journeys, and like a demo- 
cratic politician in his passion for speech-making. 

The phenomena of the moment — those which 
flicker upon the surface of things — engage his eager 
and vivacious interest. Upon such matters his 
commentaries are often apt and entertaining. But 
when he attempts to deal with deeper issues, and with 
the underlying principles and causes of human action, 
his utterances immediately lose the mind's attention 
and keep hold only of the ear's, by virtue of a certain 
resonance and blatancy. When the Kaiser discourses 
to us, as he often does, upon the profundities of 
politics, philosophy, and religion, he falls instantly into 
set forms, which express nothing that is living and 
real. He would have the world believe, and doubtless 
himself sincerely believes, that he has plunged, like 
a pearl-diver, into the deeps, and has returned thence 
laden with rich treasures of thought and experience. 
But in truth he has never visited this region at all, 
being of a nature far too buoyant for such enterprises. 
He has not found truth, but only remembered phrases. 

The Kaiser is frequently upbraided for his charm 
of manner by people who have come under its influence 
and been misled. One of the commonest accusations 
against him is that of duplicity ; but indeed it 
seems hardly more just to condemn him for duplicity 
than it would be to praise him for sincerity. He is 
a man dangerous to have dealings with, but this 

E 



50 



THE CAUSES OF WAR 



v. 

Personal 
responsi- 
bility. 



Part i. is owing to the irresponsible effervescence of his 
Chapter ideas. At any given moment lie probably means 
the greater part of what he says ; but the image 
of one moment is swiftly expelled and obliterated 
by that of the next. The Kaiser's untrustworthiness 
arises not from duplicity, so much as from the quick- 
ness of his fancy, the impulsiveness of his judgment, 
and the shortness of his memory. That his com- 
munications frequently produce the same effects as 
duplicity, is due to the fact that he recognises no 
obligation either to stand by his word, or to correct 
the impression which his hasty assurances may have 
produced in the mind of his interlocutor. The 
statesman who is won over to-day by his advocacy 
of an English alliance, is astounded on the morrow 
to find him encouraging an English pogrom. 1 

1 A labour leader, highly impressed by the spectacle, gave a vivid 
description of an equestrian parade through the streets of Berlin after the 
declaration of war — the Kaiser in helmet of gold, seated on his white 
charger, frowning terribly, in a kind of immobility, as if his features had 
been frozen into this dramatically appropriate expression — following 
behind him in a carriage the Crown Prince and Princess, all vivacity and 
smiles, and bows to this side and the other — a remarkable contrast ! 

It is interesting to contrast the ornate and flamboyant being whom 
we know as Kaiser Wilhelm the Second with Carlyle's famous description of 
the great Frederick : — 

" A highly interesting lean little old man, of alert though slightly stooping 
' figure ; whose name among strangers was King Friedrich the Second, or 
' Frederick the Great of Prussia, and at home among the common people, 
' who much loved and esteemed him, was Vater Fritz, — Father Fred, — a 
' name of familiarity which had not bred contempt in that instance. He is 
' a King every inch of him, though without the trappings of a King. 
' Presents himself in a Spartan simplicity of vesture ; no crown but an old 
' military cocked-hat, — generally old, or trampled and kneaded into 
' absolute softness, if new ; — no sceptre but one like Agamemnon's, a 
' walking-stick cut from the woods, which serves also as a riding-stick 
' (with which he hits the horse ' between the ears ' say authors) ; — and for 
' royal robes, a mere soldier's blue coat with red facings, coat likely to be 
' old, and sure to have a good deal of Spanish snuff on the breast of it ; 
' rest of the apparel dim, unobtrusive in colour or cut, ending in high 
' over-knee mibtary boots, which may be brushed (and, I hope, kept soft 
' with an underhand suspicion of oil), but are not permitted to be blackened 
' or varnished ; Day and Martin with their soot-pots forbidden to 
■ approach. 



THE IDEA OF ANTICHRIST 51 

When a violent convulsion shakes the world part i. 
people immediately begin to look about them for some chapter 

mighty and malevolent character who can be held '_ 

responsible for it. To the generations which knew Personal 
them, Cromwell, Napoleon, and Bismarck all figured bmty. 
as Antichrist. But in regard to the policy which 
produced the present war, of what man can it be said 
truly, either that he controlled that policy, or that he 
brought about the results which he aimed at ? Which 
of the great personages concerned possesses the 
sublime qualities of the spirit of evil ? * 

It is conceivable, though very unlikely, that 
behind the scenes there was some strong silent man 
who worked the others like puppets on a string ; but 
among those who have made themselves known to 
us in the pages of White Papers and the like, there 
is none whose features bear the least resemblance 
to our conception of Antichrist ; none who had firm 

" The man is not of godlike physiognomy, any more than of imposing 
' stature or costume ; close-shut mouth with thin lips, prominent jaws and 
' nose, receding brow, by no means of Olympian height ; head, however, is 
' of long form, and has superlative gray eyes in it. Not what is called a 
' beautiful man ; nor yet, by all appearance, what is called a happy. On 
' the contrary, the face bears evidence of many sorrows, as they are termed, 
1 of much hard labour done in this world ; and seems to anticipate nothing 
' but more still coming. Quiet stoicism, capable enough of what joy there 
' were, but not expecting any worth mention ; great unconscious and some 
' conscious pride, well tempered with a cheery mockery of humour, — are 
' written on that old face ; which carries its chin well forward, in spite of 
' the slight stoop about the neck ; snuffy nose rather flung into the air 
' under its old cocked hat, — like an old snuffy Hon on the watch ; and 
' such a pair of eyes as no man or lion or lynx of that century bore elsewhere, 
' according to all the testimony we have."; — Carlyle, History of Frederick 
the Great, Bk I. chap. i. 

1 A friend who has been kind enough to read the proofs of this volume 
takes exception to the rating of Antichrist. The Devil, he maintains, is not 
at all a clever or profound spirit, though he is exceedingly industrious. The 
conception of him in the old Mystery Plays, where he figures as a kind of 
butt, whose elaborate and painfully constructed schemes are continually 
being upset owing to some ridiculous oversight, or by some trivial accident, 
is the true Satan ; the Miltonic idea is a poetical myth, not in the least 
borne out by human experience. 



52 THE CAUSES OF WAR 

part i. control of events, or even of himself. There is none 
Chapter of whom it is possible to say truly that he achieved 

v> the results at which he aimed. 
Personal It is clear that the war which the joint efforts 

biiity? sl " of these great personages brought into existence was 
a monstrous birth, and that it filled those who were 
responsible for it with dismay, only a degree less 
than it shocked other people. For proof of this, it 
is unnecessary to look further than the miscalculations 
of the political kind which became recognised for 
such within a few weeks after war was declared. 



CHAPTER VI 

GERMAN MISCALCULATIONS 

In the world's play-house there are a number of Part i. 
prominent and well-placed seats, which the instinct Chapter 
of veneration among mankind insists on reserving _^_ 
for Super-men ; and as mankind is never content German 
unless the seats of the super-men are well rilled, ' the S2L. Cl 
Management ' — in other words, the press, the publi- 
cists, and other manipulators of opinion — have to 
do the best they can to find super-men to sit in them. 
When that is impossible, it is customary to burnish 
up, fig out, and pass off various colourable substitutes 
who, it is thought, may be trusted to comport them- 
selves with propriety until the curtain falls. But 
those resplendent creatures whom we know so well 
by sight and fame, and upon whom all eyes and 
opera-glasses are directed during the entr'-actes, are 
for the most part not super-men at all, but merely 
what, in the slang of the box-office, is known as 
' paper.' Indeed there have been long periods, even 
generations, during which the supposed super-men 
have been wholly ' paper.' 

Of course so long as the super-men substitutes 
have only to walk to their places, to bow, smile, 
frown, overawe, and be admired, everything goes 
safely enough. The audience is satisfied and the 



54 THE CAUSES OF WAE 

Paet i. ' management ' rubs its hands. But if anything has 
Chapter to be done beyond this parade business, if the un- 

'_ expected happens, if, for instance, there is an alarm 

German f fire — in which case the example set by the super- 
tions. creatures might be of inestimable assistance — the 
' paper ' element is certain to crumple up, according 
to the laws of its nature, being after all but dried pulp. 
Something of this kind appears to have happened 
- in various great countries during the weeks which 
immediately preceded and followed the outbreak of 
war, and in none was the crumpling up of the super- 
men substitutes more noticeable than in Germany. 

The thoroughness of the German race is no empty 
boast. All the world knows as much by experience 
in peace as well as war. Consequently, people had 
said to themselves : " However it may be with other 
' nations, in Germany at all events the strings of 
' foreign policy are firmly held in giant fingers." 
But as day succeeded day, unmasking one miscalcula- 
tion after another, it became clear that there must 
have been at least as much ' paper ' in the political 
high places of Germany as elsewhere. 

Clearly, although this war was made in Germany, 
it did not at all follow the course which had been 
charted for it in the official forecasts. For the 
German bureaucracy and general staff: had laid their 
plans to crush France at the first onset — to crush her 
till the bones stuck out through her skin. And they 
had reckoned to out-general Russia and roll back her 
multitudes, as yet unorganised — so at least it was 
conceived — in wave upon wave of encroaching de- 
feat. 

Having achieved these aims before the fall of the 
leaf, Germany would have gained thereby another 



THE TIME-TABLE MISCARRIES 55 

decade for the undisturbed development of wealth part i. 
and world-power. Under Prussian direction the Chapter 
power of Austria would then be consolidated within J^_ 
her own dominions and throughout the Balkan German 
Peninsula. At the end of this interval of vigorous SoL. °" 
recuperation, or possibly earlier, Germany would 
attack England, and England would fall an easy prey. 
For having stood aside from the former struggle she 
would be without allies. Her name would stink in 
the nostrils of Russia and France ; and indeed to the 
whole world she would be recognised for what she 
was — a decadent and coward nation. Even her 
own children would blush for her dishonour. 

That these were the main lines of the German 
forecast no man can doubt, who has watched and 
studied the development of events ; and although 
it is as yet too early days to make sure that nothing 
of all this vast conception will ever be realised, much 
of it — the time-table at all events — has certainly 
miscarried for good and all. 

According to German calculations England would 
stand aside ; but England took part. Italy would 
help her allies ; but Italy refused. Servia was a 
thing of naught ; but Servia destroyed several army 
corps. Belgium would not count ; and yet Belgium 
by her exertions counted, if for nothing more, for the 
loss of eight precious days, while by her sufferings 
she mobilised against the aggressor the condemnation 
of the whole world. 

The Germans reckoned that the army of France 
was terrible only upon paper. Forty-five years of 
corrupt government and political peculation must, 
according to their calculations, have paralysed the 



56 THE CAUSES OF WAE 

Part i. general staff and betrayed the national spirit. The 

Chapter sums voted for equipment, arms, and ammunition 

VI must assuredly have been spirited away, as under 

German the Second Empire, into the pockets of ministers, 

tions. senators, deputies, and contractors. The results of 

this regime would become apparent, as they had done 

in 1870, only in the present case sooner. 

War was declared by the Third Napoleon at 
mid-July, by William the Second not until August 
1 ; but Sedan or its equivalent would occur, never- 
theless, in the first days of September, in 1914 as in 
1870. In the former contest Paris fell at the end of 
six months ; in this one, with the aid of howitzers, it 
would fall at the end of six weeks. 

Unfortunately for this confident prediction, what- 
ever may have been the deficiency in the French 
supplies, however dangerous the consequent hitches 
in mobilisation, things fell out quite differently. 
The spirit of the people of France, and the devotion 
of her soldiers, survived the misfeasances of the 
politicians, supposing indeed that such crimes had 
actually been committed. 

It was a feature of Bismarck's diplomacy that 
he put a high value upon the good opinion of 
the world, and took the greatest pains to avoid its 
condemnation. In 1870, as we now know, he schemed 
successfully, to lure the government of Napoleon the 
Third into a declaration of war, thereby saddling the 
French government with the odium which attaches to 
peace-breakers. 1 But in the case of the present war, 

1 British public opinion in regard to that war was divided roughly 
according to party lines, the Conservatives favouring France on sentimental 
grounds, the Liberals favouring Germany as a highly-educated, peace- 
loving people who had been wantonly attacked. 



CRUELTIES IN BELGIUM 57 

which, as it out-Bismarcked Bismarck in deliberate part l 
aggressiveness, stood all the more in need of a tactful Chapter 

introduction to the outside world, the precautions 

of that astute statesman were neglected or despised. German 

_ - 1 . . if i nriscalcula- 

.brom the beginning all neutral nations were resentiul tions. 
of German procedure, and after the devastation of 
Belgium and the destruction of Louvain, the spacious 
morality of the Young Turks alone was equal to the 
profession of friendship and admiration. 

The objects which Germany sought to gain by the 
cruelties perpetrated, under orders, by her soldiers in 
Belgium and Northern France are clear enough. 
These objects were certainly of considerable value in a 
military as well as in a political sense. One wonders, 
however, if even Germany herself now considers them 
to have been worth the abhorrence and disgust which 
they have earned for her throughout the civilised 
world. 

In nothing is the sham super-man more easily 
detected than in the confidence and self-complacency 
with which he pounces upon the immediate small 
advantage, regardless of the penalty he will have to 
pay in the future. By spreading death and devastation 
broadcast in Belgium the Germans hoped to attain 
three things, and it is not impossible that they have 
succeeded in attaining them all. They sought to 
secure their communications by putting the fear of 
death, and worse than death, into the hearts of the civil 
population. They sought to send the countryside 
fleeing terror-stricken before their advance, choking 
and cumbering the highways ; than which nothing is 
ever more hampering to the operations of an army in 
retreat, or more depressing to its spirits. But chiefly 
they desired to set a ruthless object-lesson before the 



58 THE CAUSES OF WAR 

pabt i. eyes of Holland, in order to show her the consequences 

Chapter of resistance ; so that when it came to her turn to 

' answer a summons to surrender she might have the 

German good sense not to make a fuss. They desired in their 

tions. dully-calculating, official minds that Holland might 

never forget the clouds of smoke, from burning villages 

and homesteads, which the August breezes carried far 

across her frontiers ; the sights of horror, the tales of 

suffering and ruin which tens of thousands of starved, 

forlorn, and hurrying fugitives brought with them 

when they came seeking sanctuary in her territories. 

But if the Germans gained all this, and even if 

they gained in addition the loving admiration of 

the Young Turks, was it worth while to purchase 

these advantages at such a price ? It seems a poor 

bargain to save your communications, if thereby you 

lose the good opinion of the whole world. 

What is of most interest to ourselves, however, 
in the long list of miscalculations, is the confidence 
of Germany that Britain would remain neutral. For 
a variety of reasons which satisfied the able bureau- 
crats at Berlin, it was apparently taken for granted by 
them that we were determined to stand out ; and in- 
deed that we were in no position to come in even if 
we would. We conjecture that the reports of German 
ambassadors, councillors, consuls, and secret service 
agents must have been very certain and unanimous 
in this prediction. 

According to the German theory, the British race, 
at home and abroad, was wholly immersed in gain, 
and in a kind of pseudo- philanthropy — in making 
money, and in paying blackmail to the working- 
classes in order to be allowed to go on making money. 



GERMAN VIEW OF ENGLAND 59 

Our social legislation and our ' People's Budgets ' were part i. 
regarded in Germany with contempt, as sops and Chapter 
shams, wanting in thoroughness and tainted with '_ 

hypocrisy. German 

J r j miscalcula- 

English politicians, acting upon the advice of turns, 
obliging financiers, had been engaged during recent 
years (so grossly was the situation misjudged by our 
neighbours) in imposing taxation which hit the 
trader, manufacturer, and country-gentleman as hard 
as possible; which also hit the working-class hard, 
though indirectly ; but which left holes through which 
the financiers themselves — by virtue of their inter- 
national connections and affiliations — could glide 
easily into comparative immunity. 

From these faulty premisses, Germans concluded 
that Britain was held in leading-strings by certain 
sentimentalists who wanted vaguely to do good ; and 
that these sentimentalists, again, were helped and 
guided by certain money-lenders and exploiters, who 
were all very much in favour of paying ransom out 
of other people's pockets. A nation which had come 
to this pass would be ready enough to sacrifice future 
interests — being blind to them — for the comforts of 
a present peace. 

The Governments of the United Kingdom and the 
Dominions were largely influenced — so it was believed 
at Berlin — by crooks and cranks of various sorts, by 
speculators and 'speculatists,' x many of them of foreign 
origin or descent — who preached day in and day out 
the doctrine that war was an anachronism, vieux jeu, 
even an impossibility in the present situation of the 
world. 

1 ' Speculatists ' was a term used by contemporary American writers 
to describe the eloquent theorists who played so large a part in the French 
Revolution. 



60 THE CAUSES OF WAR 

Part i. The British Government appeared to treat these 
Chapter materially-minded visionaries with the highest favour. 

'_ Their advice was constantly sought ; they were 

German recipients of the confidences of Ministers ; they 
tions. played the part of Lords Bountiful to the party 
organisations ; they were loaded with titles, if not 
with honour. Their abhorrence of militarism knew 
no bounds, and to a large extent it seemed to German, 
and even to English eyes, as if they carried the 
Cabinet, the party-machine, and the press along 
with them. 

' Militarism,' as used by these enthusiasts, was a 
comprehensive term. It covered with ridicule and 
disrepute even such things as preparation for the 
defence of the national existence. International 
law was solemnly recommended as a safer defence 
than battleships. 

Better certainly, they allowed, if militarism could 
be rooted out in all countries ; but at any rate England, 
the land of their birth or adoption, must be saved 
from the contamination of this brutalising idea. In 
their anxiety to discredit Continental exemplars 
they even went so far as to evolve an ingenious 
theory, that foreign nations which followed in the 
paths of militarism, did so at serious loss to them- 
selves, but with wholly innocent intentions. More 
especially, they insisted, was this true in the case of 
Germany. 

The Liberal party appeared to listen to these 
opinions with respect ; Radicals hailed them with 
enthusiasm ; while the Labour party was at one time 
so much impressed, as to propose through some of its 
more progressive spirits that, in the exceedingly 
unlikely event of a German landing, working-men 



ERRORS OF INFERENCE 61 

should continue steadily at their usual labours and part i. 
pay no heed to the military operations of the Chapter 
invaders. VL 

In Berlin, apparently, all this respect and en- German 

inisculoulfi.- 

thusiasm for pacifism, together with the concrete tkms. 
proposals for putting its principles into practice, 
were taken at their face value. There at any rate 
it was confidently believed that the speculators and 
the 'speculatists' had succeeded in changing or erasing 
the spots of the English leopard. 

But in order to arrive at such a conclusion as this 
the able German bureaucrats must have understood 
very little, one would think, of human nature in 
general, and of British human nature in particular. 
Clearly they built more hopes on our supposed con- 
version to pacifism than the foundations would stand. 
They were right, of course, in counting it a benefit 
to themselves that we were unprepared and un- 
suspicious of attack ; that we had pared down our 
exiguous army and stinted our navy somewhat beyond 
the limits of prudence. They were foolish, however, 
not to perceive that if the British people found 
themselves confronted with the choice, between a war 
which they believed to be righteous, and a peace 
which they saw clearly would not only be wounding 
to their own honour but ruinous to their security, all 
their fine abstract convictions would go by the board ; 
that party distinctions would then for the time being 
disappear, and the speculators and the ' speculatists ' 
would be interned in the nethermost pit of national 
distrust. ... In so far, therefore, as the Germans 
reckoned on our unpreparedness they were wise ; 
but in counting upon British neutrality they were 
singularly wide of the mark. 



62 THE CAUSES OF WAR 

part i. One imagines that among the idealists of Berlin 

Chapter there must surely have been a few sceptics who did 

not altogether credit this wholesale conversion and 

German quakerisation of the British race. But for these 

tiras! doubters, if indeed they existed, there were other 

considerations of a more practical kind which seemed 

to indicate that Britain must certainly stand aside. 

The first and most important of these was the 
imminence of civil war in Ireland. If Prince Lich- 
nowsky and Baron von Kuhlmann reported that this 
had become inevitable, small blame to their per- 
spicacity ! For in this their judgment only tallied 
with that of most people in the United Kingdom who 
had any knowledge of the true facts. 

In March an incident occurred among the troops 
stationed in Ireland which must have given comfort 
at Berlin, even in greater measure than it caused 
disquiet at home. For it showed in a vivid flash 
the intrinsic dangers of the Irish situation, and the 
tension, almost to breaking - point, which existed 
between the civil authorities and the fighting services. 

It also showed, what in the circumstances must 
have been peculiarly reassuring to the German 
Government, that our Navy and Army were under 
the charge of Ministers whose judgments were apt 
to be led captive by their tempers. Although the 
Secretary of State for War did not remain in office 
for many days to encourage the hearts of the general 
staff at Berlin, his important post was never filled. 
It was only occupied and kept warm by the Prime 
Minister, whose labours and responsibilities — accord- 
ing to the notions of the Germans, who are a pains- 
taking and thorough people — were already enough 
for one man to undertake. Moreover, the First 



THE DUBLIN RIOT 63 

Lord of the Admiralty had not resigned ; and it part i. 
was perhaps natural, looking at what had just Chapter 
happened, to conclude that he would be wholly VL 
incapable of the sound and swift decision by which German 
a few months later he was destined to atone for his tions. cu 
recent blunder. 

Moreover, although the Curragh incident, as it 
was called, had been patched over in a sort of way, 
the danger of civil war in Ireland had not diminished 
in the least by Midsummer. Indeed it had sensibly 
increased. During the interval large quantities of 
arms and ammunition had been imported by Ulster- 
men in defiance of the Government, and Nationalists 
were eagerly engaged in emulating their example. 
The emergency conference of the leaders of parties 
which the King, acting upon the desperate advice 
of his Ministers, had called together at Buckingham 
Palace ended in complete failure. 

On Monday the 27th of July readers of the morning 
newspapers, looking anxiously for news of the Servian 
reply to the Austrian ultimatum, found their eyes 
distracted by even blacker headlines, which announced 
that a Scots regiment had fired on a Dublin mob. 

How the bureaucrats of Berlin must have rubbed 
their hands and admired their own prescience ! Civil 
war in Ireland had actually begun, and in the very 
nick of time ! And this occurrence, no less dramatic 
than opportune, was a triumph not merely for German 
foresight but for German contrivance — like a good 
many other things, indeed, which have taken place 
of late. When the voyage of the good ship Fanny, 
which in April carried arms to the coast of Antrim, 
comes to be written, and that of the anonymous yacht 
which sailed from German waters, transhipped its 



64 THE CAUSES OF WAR 

part i. cargo in the channel, whence it was safely conveyed 

Chapter by another craft to Dublin Bay to kindle this blaze 

VL in July — when these narratives are set out by some 

German future historian, as they deserve to be, but not until 

miscac a- ^^ ^ w -^ ^ Q j mown \ i0W zealously, benevolently, 

and impartially our loyal and kindly Teuton cousins 
forwarded and fomented the quarrel between Cove- 
nanter and Nationalist. What the German bureau- 
crats, however, with all their foresight, apparently 
did not in the least foresee, was that the wound which 
they had intentionally done so much to keep open, 
they would speedily be helping unintentionally to 
heal. 

With regard to South Africa, German miscalcula- 
tion and intrigue pursued a somewhat similar course, 
though with little better results. It was assumed 
that South Africa, having been fully incorporated 
in the Empire as a self-governing unit only twelve 
years earlier, and as the result of a prolonged and 
sanguinary war, must necessarily be bent on severing 
the British connection at the earliest opportunity. 
The Dutch, like the frogs in the fable, were imagined 
to be only awaiting a favourable moment to exchange 
the tyranny of King Log for the benevolent rule of 
King Stork. 

In these forecasts, however, various considera- 
tions were overlooked. In the first place, the 
methods of incorporation pursued by the British in 
South Africa were as nearly as possible the opposite 
of those adopted by Prussia in Poland, in Schleswig- 
Holstein, and in Alsace-Lorraine. In many quarters 
there were doubtless bitter memories among the Dutch, 
and in some others disappointed ambition still ached ; 



MISTAKES AS TO DUTCH 65 

but these forces were not enough to plunge into serious Part i. 
civil war two races which, after nearly a century Chapter 
of strife and division, had but a few years before 
entered into a solemn and voluntary covenant to make German 
a firm union, and dwell henceforth in peace one with tions. 
another. What object could there be for Dutchmen 
to rise in rebellion against a government, which 
consisted almost exclusively of Dutch statesmen, 
and which had been put in office and was kept there 
by the popular vote ? 

What German intrigue and bribery could do it 
did. But Dutchmen whose recollections went back 
so far as twenty years were little likely to place 
excessive confidence in the incitements and profes- 
sions of Berlin. They remembered with what busy 
intrigues Germany had in former times encouraged 
their ambitions, with what a rich bribery of promises 
she had urged them on to war, with what cold indiffer- 
ence, when war arose, she had left them to their fate. 
They also remembered how, when their aged President, 
an exiled and broken-hearted man, sought an inter- 
view with the great sovereign whose consideration 
for him in his more prosperous days had never lacked 
for warmth, he received for an answer, that Berlin 
was no place for people who had been beaten to come 
whining, and was turned from the door. 

In India, as in South Africa, Germany entertained 
confident hopes of a successful rising. Had not the 
Crown Prince, a shrewd judge, visited there a few 
years earlier and formed his own estimate of the 
situation ? Was there not a widely spread network 
of sedition covering the whole of our Eastern Empire, 
an incendiary press, and orators who openly counselled 

F 



66 THE CAUSES OF WAE 

Part i. violence and preached rebellion ? Had not riots 

Chapter been increasing rapidly in gravity and number ? 

VL Had not assassins been actively pursuing their trade ? 

German Had not a ship-load of Indians just been refused 

miscalcula- i • • , an i ■ i i j_ j_1 

tions. admission to Canada, thereby causing a not unnatural 
outburst of indignation ? 

How far German statesmen had merely foreseen 
these things, how far they had actually contrived 
them, we are as yet in ignorance ; but judging by 
what has happened in other places — in Ireland, 
South Africa, Belgium, and France — it would 
surprise no one to learn that the bombs which 
were thrown at the Viceroy and his wife with tragic 
consequences owed something to German teaching. 
It is unlikely that German emissaries had been less 
active in fomenting unrest in India than elsewhere 
among the subjects of nations with which they were 
ostensibly at peace ; while the fact that the Crown 
Prince had but recently enjoyed the hospitality of 
the Viceregal Court was only a sentimental considera- 
tion unworthy of the attention of super-men. 

Moreover, it had for long been abundantly clear, 
on a priori grounds, to thinkers like Treitschke and 
Bernhardi that India was already ripe for rebellion 
on a grand scale. There are but two things which 
affect the Indian mind with awe and submission — a 
sublime philosophy and a genius for war. The 
English had never been philosophers, and they had 
ceased to be warriors. How, then, could a race which 
worshipped only soldiers and sages be expected to 
reverence and obey a garrison of clerks and shop- 
keepers ? A war between England and Germany 
would provide an opportunity for making an end for 
ever of the British Kaj. 



MISTAKES AS TO DOMINIONS 67 

The self-governing Dominions were believed to part i. 
be affected with the same decadent spirit and fantastic Chapter 
illusions as their Mother Country ; only with them 
these cankers had spread more widely, were more German 
logically followed out in practice, and less tempered tionu. 
and restrained by aristocratic tradition. Their 
eloquent outpourings of devotion and cohesion were 
in reality quite valueless ; merely what in their own 
slang is known as ' hot air.' They hated militarism 
in theory and practice, and they loved making money 
with at least an equal fervour. Consequently, it was 
absurd to suppose that their professions of loyalty 
would stand the strain of a war, by which not only 
their national exchequers, but the whole mass of the 
people must inevitably be impoverished, in which 
the manhood of the Dominions would be called on 
for military service, and their defenceless territories 
placed in danger of invasion. 

It was incredible to the wise men at Berlin that 
the timid but clear minds of English Statesmen had 
not appreciated these obvious facts. War, there- 
fore, would be avoided so long as possible. And when 
at a later date, war was forced by Germany upon the 
pusillanimous islanders, the Dominions would im- 
mediately discern various highly moral pleas for 
standing aloof. Germany, honouring these pleas 
for the time being with a mock respect, would defer 
devouring the Dominions until she had digested the 
more serious meal. 

It will be seen from all this how good the grounds 
were on which the best-informed and most efficient 
bureaucracy in the world decided that the British 
Empire would remain neutral in the present war. 



68 THE CAUSES OF WAR 

Pabt i. Looked at from the strictly intellectual standpoint, 

Chapter the reasons which satisfied German Statesmen with 

VL regard to Britain's neutrality were overwhelming, and 

German might well have convinced others, of a similar outlook 

miscalcula- -.,.. tit i • ^ j_i,l 

tions. and training, who had no personal interest whatsoever 
in coming to one conclusion rather than another. 

None the less the judgment of the Kaiser and his 
Ministers was not only bad, but inexcusably bad. 
We expect more from statesmen than that they 
should arrive at logical conclusions. Logic in such 
cases is nothing ; all that matters is to be right ; 
but unless instinct rules and reason serves, right 
judgment will rarely be arrived at in such matters as 
these. If a man cannot feel as well as reason, if he 
cannot gauge the forces which are at work among the 
nations by some kind of second-sight, he has no title 
to set up his bills as a statesman. It is incredible 
that Lincoln, Cavour, or Bismarck would ever have 
blundered into such a war as this, under the delusion 
that Britain could remain neutral even if she would. 
Nor would any of these three have been so far out in 
his reckoning as to believe, that the immediate effect 
of such a war, if Britain joined in it, would be the 
disruption of her empire. They might have calculated 
that in the event of the war being prolonged and 
disastrous to England, disintegration would in the 
end come about ; but without stopping to reason 
the matter out, they would have known by instinct, 
that the first effect produced by such a war would 
be a consolidation and knitting together of the loose 
Imperial fabric, and a suspension, or at least a diminu- 
tion, of internal differences. 



CHAPTER VII 

INTERNATIONAL ILL-WILL 

In the foregoing pages an attempt has been made Part i. 
to consider the series of events which immediately Chapter 

VII 

preceded the recent outbreak of war. But the most '_ 

complete account of moves and counter-moves, and Iutei " , 

*■ national 

of all the pretexts, arguments, demands, and appeals m-wiii. 
which were put forward by the various governments 
concerned, with the object of forcing on, justifying, 
circumscribing, or preventing the present struggle, 
can never give us the true explanation of why it 
occurred. For this we must look much further back 
than Midsummer last, and at other things besides 
the correspondence between Foreign Ministers and 
Ambassadors. 

Nobody in his senses believes that Europe is at 
present in a convulsion because the heir-presumptive to 
the throne of Austria was murdered at Serajevo on the 
28th of June. This event was tragic and deplorable, 
but it was merely a spark — one of that cloud of sparks 
which is always issuing from the chimney-stack of 
the European furnace. This one by ill-luck happened 
to fall upon a heap of combustibles, and set it in a 
blaze. 

Great events, as the Greeks discovered several 
thousand years ago, do not spring from small causes, 

69 



70 THE CAUSES OF WAR 

Part i. though more often than not they have some trivial 
Chapter beginning. How came it that so much inflammable 

v ' material was lying ready to catch fire ? 
inter- To answer this question truthfully we need more 

m-wiii. knowledge of men and things than is given in those 
books, of varying hue, which the Chancelleries of Europe 
have published to explain their causes of action. The 
official sources provide much valuable information ; 
but they will never explain to us why public opinion 
in Germany, ever since the beginning of the present 
century, has been inflamed with hatred against this 
country. Nor will they ever give us any clear idea as 
to what extent, and where, the practical aims and 
policies of that nation and our own were in conflict. 

According to the state papers, it would appear 
that Russia was drawn into this war because of Servia, 
and France because of Russia, and Belgium because of 
France, and we ourselves because of Belgium ; but 
it may well be doubted if even the first of this row 
of ninepins would have been allowed to fall, had it 
not been for the feelings which the German people 
and their rulers entertained towards Britain. 

It is always hard for a man to believe in the 
sincerity, friendliness, and peaceful intentions of one 
against whom he is himself engaged in plotting an 
injury. German distrust of England was based upon 
the surest of all foundations — upon her own fixed 
and envious determination to overthrow our empire 
and rob us of our property. Her own mind being 
filled with this ambition, how could she be otherwise 
than incredulous of our expressions of goodwill ? 
How could she conceive that we were so blind as not 
to have penetrated her thoughts, so deaf as not to 
have heard the threats which her public characters 



THE DANGER POINT 71 

were proclaiming so openly ? Consequently when Part i. 
British Statesmen uttered amiable assurances they Chapter 

were judged guilty of a treacherous dissimulation. . . . [ 

One can only shrug one's shoulders, marvelling at Iut f r - 
the nightmares and suspicions which a bad conscience m-wiu. 
is capable of producing even among intelligent people. 

It has been the fashion for half a century or more 
to talk of the Balkans as the danger-point of European 
peace. In a sense this is true. The crust is very 
thin in that region, and violent eruptions are of 
common occurrence. But the real danger of upheaval 
comes, not so much from the thinness of the crust, 
as from the strength of the subterranean forces. 
Of these, by far the most formidable in recent times 
have been the attitude of public opinion in Germany 
towards England — the hatred of England which has 
been sedulously and systematically inculcated among 
the people of all ranks — the suspicions of our policy 
which have been sown broadcast — the envy of our 
position in the world which has been instilled, without 
remission, by all and sundry the agencies and in- 
dividuals subject to the orders and inspiration of 
government. An obsession has been created, by 
these means, which has distorted the whole field of 
German vision. National ill-will accordingly has 
refused to yield to any persuasion. Like its con- 
trary, the passion of love, it has burned all the more 
fiercely, being unrequited. 

The fact which it is necessary to face, fairly and 
squarely, is that we are fighting the whole German 
people. We may blame, and blame justly, the 
Prussian junkers, the German bureaucracy, the 
Kaiser himself, for having desired this war, schemed 



72 THE CAUSES OF WAR 

part i. for it, set the match to it by intention or through 

Chapter a blunder ; but to regard it as a Kaiser's war, or a 

VIL junkers' war, or a bureaucrats' war is merely to 

inter- deceive ourselves. It is a people's war if ever there 

iii-wiii. was one. It could not have been more a people's 

war than it is, even if Germany had been a democracy 

like France or England. 

The Kaiser, as regards this matter, is the mirror 
of his people. The Army and the Navy are his 
trusted servants against whom not a word will be 
believed. The wisdom of the bureaucracy is un- 
questioned. In matters of faith the zealous eloquence 
of the learned men is wholly approved. All classes 
are as one in devotion, and are moved by the 
same spirit of self-sacrifice. Hardly a murmur of 
criticism has been heard, even from the multitudes 
who at other times march under the red flag of 
Socialism. 

Although a German panic with regard to Russia 
may have been the proximate occasion of this war, 
the force which most sustains it in its course is 
German hatred of England. We must recognise this 
fact with candour, however painful it may be. And 
we must also note that, during the past nine months, 
the feelings against England have undergone a change 
by no means for the better. 

At the beginning the German people, if we may 
judge from published utterances, were convinced 
that the war had been engineered by Russia, and 
that England had meanly joined in it, because she 
saw her chance of crushing a dangerous and envied 
rival. 

Two months later, however, it was equally clear 
that the German people were persuaded — Heaven 



FANTASTIC ERRORS 73 

knows how or why ! — that the war had been engineered part i. 
by England, who was using France and Russia as Chapter 
her tools. Behind Russia, France, Belgium, Servia, ' 

and Japan — according to this view — stood Britain inter- 

■z, ° . .. national 

— perfidious throughout the ages — guiding ner ui-wrn. 
puppets with indefatigable skill to the destruction 
of German trade, colonies, navy, and world-power. 

Confiding Germany, in spite of all her unremitting 
abuse of Britain, had apparently, for some reason, 
really believed her to be a friend and a fellow Teuton ! 
Could any treachery have been blacker than our 
own in outraging these family affections ? And for 
Britain to support the Slav and the Celt against the 
Teuton, was judged to be the worst treachery of all — 
race treachery — especially by the Prussians, who, 
having forgotten that they themselves are half Slavs, 
seemed also to have forgotten that the British are 
largely Celts. 

Every Englishman, whether he be an admirer 
of Sir Edward Grey's administration of Foreign 
Affairs or not, knows these dark suspicions to be 
merely nonsense. He knows this as one of the 
common certainties of existence — just as he knows 
that ginger is hot i' the mouth. Every Englishman 
knows that Sir Edward Grey, his colleagues, his 
advisers, his supporters in Parliament and out of 
it, and the whole British race throughout the world, 
hated the idea of war, and would have done — and 
in fact did, so far as in them lay — everything they 
could think of to avert it. Yet the German people 
do not at present believe a single word of this ; and 
there must be some reason for their disbelief as for 
other things. 

Unfortunately the nations of the world never 



74 THE CAUSES OF WAR 

Part i. see one another face to face. They carry on their 

Chapter intercourse, friendly and otherwise, by high-angle 

'_ fire, from hidden batteries of journalistic howitzers. 

inter- Sometimes the projectiles which they exchange are 

national . . . 

m-wiii. charged with ideal hate which explodes and kills ; 
at others with ideal love and admiration which dis- 
solve in golden showers, delightful and amazing to 
behold. But always the gunners are invisible to 
each other, and the ideal love and admiration are 
often as far removed from the real merits of their 
objective as the ideal hate. 

That there was no excuse, beyond mere fancy 
on Germany's part, for her distrust of British policy, 
no one, unless he were wholly ignorant of the facts, 
would dream of maintaining. During the years 
which have passed since 1870, our intentions have 
very rarely been unfriendly. Still more rarely, how- 
ever, have we ever shown any real comprehension of 
the German point of view. Never have we made 
our policy clear. The last is hardly to be wondered 
at, seeing that we had not ourselves taken the pains 
to understand it. 

On occasions, it is true, we have been effusive, 
and have somewhat overstepped the limits of dignity, 
plunging into a gushing sentimentality, or else 
wheedling and coaxing, with some material object — 
the abatement of naval expenditure, for example — 
showing very plainly through our blandishments. 
And as our methods at these times have been lack- 
ing in self-respect, it is not wonderful if they have 
earned little or no respect from others. Our protesta- 
tions that we were friends, our babble about blood- 
relationship, were suspected to have their origin in 
timidity ; our appeals for restriction of armaments, 



FAULTS OF ENGLISH METHODS 75 

to our aversion from personal sacrifice and our senile part i. 
penuriousness. Chapter 

Until lately these lapses into excessive amiability, '_ 

it must be allowed, were not very frequent. The Iiiter - , 
mam excuse for German suspicion is to be found m- w m. 
elsewhere — in the dilatoriness of our foreign policy — 
in its inability to make up its mind — in its change- 
ability after its mind might have been supposed 
made up — in its vagueness with regard to the nature 
of our obligations towards other powers — whom we 
would support, and to what extent, and upon what 
pleas. 

Irritation on the part of Germany would have 
been natural in these circumstances, even if she had 
not been in the mood to suspect dark motives in the 
background. From the days of Lord Granville to 
those of Sir Edward Grey, we had been dealing with 
a neighbour who, whatever her failings might be, 
was essentially businesslike in her methods. We, 
on the other hand, continued to exhibit many of 
those faults which are most ill-regarded by business 
men. We would not say clearly what regions came 
within our sphere of influence. We would not say 
clearly where Germany might go and where we 
should object to her going ; but wherever she went, 
we were apt after the event to grumble and make 
trouble. 

The delay and indecision which marked Lord 
Granville's dealings with Bismarck over the partition 
of Africa were both bad manners in the international 
sense, and bad policy. The neglect of Sir Edward 
Grey, after Agadir, to make clear to his fellow-country- 
men, and to the world at large, the nature and extent 
of our obligations to France, was bad business. Next 



76 THE CAUSES OF WAB 

Part i. to the British people and our present allies, Germany 

Chapter had the best reason to complain of this procedure, 
VII ... 
'_ or rather of this failure to proceed. 

inter- ^he blame for this unfortunate record rests mainly 

national . . .,..,-, 

iii-wiii. upon our political system, rather than on individuals. 
We cannot enjoy the benefits of the most highly 
developed party system in the world, without losing 
by it in various directions. A change of Govern- 
ment, actual or impending, has more often been the 
cause of procrastination and uncertainty than change 
in the mind of the Foreign Minister. There are people 
who assure us that this must always be so, that it 
is one of the inherent weaknesses of party govern- 
ment, and even of democracy itself. This is not 
altogether true. It is true, however, that whereas 
statesmen may be reticent and keep their own counsel 
under an autocracy, they are bound to be frank, and 
simple, and outspoken as to their aims, where their 
power is drawn directly from popular support. 

The criticism against British foreign policy for 
upwards of a century, is that it has aimed at managing 
our international relations on a system of hoodwinking 
the people, which is altogether incompatible with 
the nature of our institutions. The evils which 
have resulted from this mistake are not confined to 
ourselves, but have reacted abroad. "With whom," 
we can imagine some perplexed foreign Chancellor 
asking himself — " with whom does power really 
' rest in England ? With the Government or with 
' the people ? With which of these am I to deal ? 
' To which must I address myself ? As regards 
' France there is little difficulty, for her policy is 
' national, and agreed on all hands. But in England, 
' so far as we can judge, the people have no idea of 



BAD DIPLOMACY 77 

being dragged under any circumstances into a part i. 
European war ; while on the other hand, the Govern- Chapter 
ment is obviously drifting, consciously or uncon- ^^ 
sciously, into continental relations which, in certain inter- 
events, can lead to no other result. ..." Nor is m- w ni. 
it surprising that under these conditions German 
diplomacy should have directed itself of late, with 
much industry, to the cultivation of public opinion 
in this country, and should at times have treated our 
Government with scant respect. 

The fact is that the two nations, which had most 
to gain by clear-sighted and tactful foreign policy, 
were perhaps of all nations in the world the least 
well served in that particular. English relations 
with Germany have for many years past been more 
mismanaged than anything except German relations 
with England. In their mutual diplomacy the fingers 
of both nations have been all thumbs. 

It is not to be wondered at that two characters 
so antagonistic in their natures and methods as 
English and German foreign policy should have come 
to regard one another as impossible. The aggressive 
personage who does know his own mind, and the 
vague, supercilious personage who does not, have 
only one point in common — that they understand 
and care very little about the feelings of other people. 
But although this is a point in common, it is anything 
but a point of agreement. 1 

1 If we may offer a very homely simile — German policy may be compared 
to a rude heavy fellow, who comes shoving his way into a crowded bus, 
snorting aggressively, treading on everybody's corns, poking his umbrella 
into people's eyes, and finally plumping himself down without a word of 
regret or apology, between the two meekest and most helploss-looking of 
the passengers. 

British diplomacy, on the other hand, bears a close resemblance to a 
nuisance, equally well known to the bus public, and no less dreaded. It 



78 THE CAUSES OF WAR 

part i. The causes of what has happened will never be 

Chapter clear to us unless we can arrive at some understanding 

VIL of the ideas, aspirations, and dreams which have filled 

inter- the minds of the German people and our own during 

national . r\ -i • i i j_ 'J 

m.wiii. recent years. On logical grounds we must consider 
the case of Germany first, for the reason that all 
the warmth of enmity has proceeded from her side, 
and, until recent events suddenly aroused the Old 
Adam in us, the uncharitable sentiments of our 
neighbours were not at all cordially reciprocated 
over here. 

As in romantic drama, according to the cynics, 
there is usually one which loves and another which 
allows itself to be loved, so in this case there was 
one which hated and another which allowed itself to 
be hated. The British nation could not understand 
why the Germans were so angry and suspicious. 
Nor would it trouble to understand. It was bored 
with the whole subject ; and even the irritation 
which it felt at having to find huge sums annually 
for the Navy did not succeed in shaking it out of its 
boredom. 

The most careful analysis of our thoughts about 
Germany would do little to explain matters, because, 
as it happened, by far the greater part of our 
thoughts was occupied with other things. Indeed we 
thought about Germany as little as we could help 
thinking ; and although we regretted her annoyance, 

reminds us constantly of that dawdling, disobliging female who never can 
make up her mind, till the bus has actually started, whether she wants to 
go to Shepherd's Bush or the Mansion House. If she has taken a seat 
she insists on stopping the conveyance in order to get out. If she has 
remained gaping on the pavement she hails it in order to get in. She cares 
nothing about the inconvenience caused thereby to other passengers, who 
do know whither they want to be conveyed, and desire to arrive at their 
destination as quickly as possible. 



INTERNATIONAL MISCONCEPTIONS 79 

our consciences absolved us from any responsibility part i. 

for it. Chapter 

It was entirely different with Germany. For VIL 
many years past she had been more occupied with ster- 
ner grievances against Britain, and with the com- m-wiii. 
plications and dangers which would beset any attempt 
at redress, than with any other single subject; or 
indeed, so it would appear, with all other subjects 
put together. 

It is important to understand the German point 
of view, but it is difficult. For at once we are faced 
with the eternal obstacle of the foreigner, who sets out 
in search of a simple explanation. The mind of the 
ordinary man, like that of the philosopher, is hypno- 
tised by a basic assumption of the One-ness of Things. 
He wants to trace all trouble to a single root, as if 
it were a corn and could be extracted. But in an 
enquiry like the present we are confronted at every 
turn with the Two-ness of Things, or indeed with the 
Multiplicity of Things. 

We have only to read a few pages of any German 
book on England to see that the other party to the 
dispute is confronted with exactly the same difficulty. 
We are amazed, and perhaps not altogether chagrined, 
to discover that, to German eyes, British policy 
appears to be a thing of the most rigorous consist- 
ency. It is deliberate, far-sighted, and ruthless. It 
is pursued with constancy from decade to decade — 
nay from century to century— never faltering, never 
retreating, but always going forward under Whig and 
Tory, Liberal and Conservative alike, to the same 
goal. And we of course know, if we know anything, 
that this picture, though very flattering to our 
political instinct, is untrue. 



80 THE CAUSES OF WAR 

Part i. If Englishmen know anything at all, they know 

Chapter that the foreign policy of this country during the 

VIL last fifty years — under Lord Beaconsfield, and Mr. 

inter- Gladstone, Lord Salisbury, and Mr. Asquith — has 

m-wru. been at times a series of the most eccentric wobbles 

and plunges, like a kite which is drawn at the wrong 

angle to the wind. Nay, even as regards our 

participation in this very War — which in the German 

White Book is asserted to have been preconceived 

and undertaken by us with a craft and coolness 

worthy of Machiavelli himself — we can see from 

our own White Paper that the final decision wavered 

this way and the other, from day to day during the 

critical week, neither the Cabinet nor public opinion 

being clear and unanimous as to the course which 

ought to be pursued. 

Vacillation in national policy usually appears to 
hostile observers in the light of perfidy. And it 
must be admitted that there is good excuse for the 
mistake, seeing that weakness in such high matters 
is quite as likely to injure everybody concerned as 
wickedness itself. 

Assuredly no sensible person who was required 
to make a defence of British foreign policy, either 
during the century which has passed since the battle 
of Waterloo, or in the much shorter period since the 
death of Queen Victoria, would ever dream of doing 
so on the ground that its guiding principles have 
been consistency and singleness of purpose. These, 
indeed, are almost the last virtues he would think 
of claiming for it. And yet these are the very 
qualities which foreign nations are inclined to attri- 
bute to British statesmen, by way of praise or blame. 
Our failures are apt to be overlooked by outside 



THE TRIANGLE OF FORCES 81 

observers ; our successes on the other hand are plain Part i. 
and memorable. Other nations assume that because Chapter 

we have happened to achieve some particular result, '_ 

we must therefore have deliberately and patiently Iliter - 

national 

set out to achieve it. Much more often this result ui-mu. 
has been due either to pure good luck or else to some 
happy inspiration of the moment. 

A wise apologist for our foreign policy would at 
once concede that it has frequently been charac- 
terised by feebleness and indecision, and almost 
always by a want of clear perception of the end in 
view ; but he could contend with justice that upon 
the whole, for upwards of a century, it has meant 
well by other nations, and that accusations of far- 
sighted duplicity are purely ridiculous. 

Our own temptation on the other hand is to 
visualise a single, gross, overbearing, and opinionated 
type of the Teuton species. We tend to ignore 
important differences ; and because German public 
opinion appears to be unanimous in regard to the 
present War, we are apt to overlook the fact that 
the love and admiration of the Bavarian and the 
Saxon for the Prussian are probably some degrees 
less cordial than those which the men of Kerry 
and Connemara entertain for the Belfast Covenanters. 
And we incline also to forget, that though opinion in 
Germany in favour of war became solid so soon as 
war was apprehended, and certainly before it was 
declared, it is exceedingly unlikely, that even in 
governing circles, there was an equal unanimity as 
to the procedure which led up to the climax. 

If it were really so, the case is unique in history, 
which shows us at every other crisis of this sort always 
the same triangle of forces — a War party, a Peace 

G 



82 THE CAUSES OF WAK 

Part i. party, and a Wait -and -See party ; each of them 

Chapter pulling vigorously in its own direction ; each intriguing 

; against, and caballing with, the other two by turns ; 

inter- until at last the group, still struggling, falls back on 

national & l ' . && . & ' . - 

iii-wm. the side of safety or, as m the recent instance, pitches 
over the edge of the precipice. 

It would be very hard to persuade any student 
of history that something of this sort was not occur- 
ring both in Vienna and Berlin during the months of 
June and July 1914. While he would admit to more 
than a suspicion that intelligences had been passing 
for a considerably longer period — for a year at least * 
— between the War parties in these two capitals, he 
would be inclined to take the view, that in the last 
stage of all, the Berlin group went staggering to 
perdition, dragging after it the Vienna group, which 
by that time was struggling feebly in the opposite 
direction. 

When we come to consider the German case it 
is wise to bear in mind the erroneous judgments 
which foreigners have passed upon ourselves. It 
is probable that the One-ness of things which we 
discover in their actions is to some extent an illusion, 
like that which they have discovered in our own. 
Indeed it is a fruitless task to hunt for logic and 
consistency in things which, in their nature, are neither 
logical nor consistent. For most of us, who have 
but a limited range of German books, state papers, 
journalism, and acquaintances to judge from, it would 
be vain and foolish to pretend that in a chapter, or 
a volume, we can lay bare the German attitude of 

1 We have recently learned from Signor Giolitti, ex-Premier of Italy, 
that in August 1913 the Foreign Minister, the late Marquis di San Giuliano, 
was sounded by Austria-Hungary as to whether he would join in an attack 
upon Servia. 



LIMITS OF ENQUIRY 83 

mind. The most we can hope to do is to illuminate Part i. 
this complex subject at certain points ; and these Chapter 

for the most part are where the edges rub, and where '_ 

German policy and temperament have happened to Inter - 
come into conflict with our own. m-win. 



PART II 
THE SPIRIT OF GERMAN POLICY 



CHRISTIAN : Met you with nothing else in that Valley ? 
FAITHFUL : Yes, I met with Shame. But of all the Men I 

MET WITH IN MY PILGRIMAGE, HE I THINK BEARS THE WRONG NAME : . . . 
THIS BOLDFACED SHAME, WOULD NEVER HAVE DONE. 

CHRISTIAN : Why, what did he say to you ? 

FAITHFUL : What ! why he objected against Religion itself ; he 

SAID IT WAS A PITIFUL LOW SNEAKING BUSINESS FOR A MAN TO MIND RELIGION ; 
HE SAID THAT A TENDER CONSCIENCE WAS AN UNMANLY THING, AND THAT 
FOR A MAN TO WATCH OVER HIS WORDS AND WAYS, SO AS TO TYE UP HIMSELF 
FROM THAT HECTORING LIBERTY THAT THE BRAVE SPIRITS OF THE TIMES 
ACCUSTOM THEMSELVES UNTO, WOULD MAKE ME THE RlDICULE OF THE TIMES. 

HE OBJECTED ALSO, THAT BUT FEW OF THE MlGHTY, RlCH, OR WlSE, 
WERE EVER OF MY OPINION ; NOR ANY OF THEM, NEITHER, BEFORE THEY 
WERE PERSWADED TO BE FOOLS, AND TO BE OF A VOLUNTARY FONDNESS TO 
VENTURE THE LOSS OF ALL, FOR NO BODY ELSE KNOWS WHAT. 

YEA, HE DID HOLD ME TO IT AT THAT RATE ALSO ABOUT A GREAT MANY 
MORE THINGS THAN HERE I RELATE; AS, THAT IT WAS A SHAME. . . . 
TO ASK MY NEIGHBOUR FORGIVENESS FOR PETTY FAULTS, OR TO MAKE 
RESTITUTION WHERE I HAD TAKEN FROM ANY. He SAID ALSO THAT RELI- 
gion made a man grow strange to the great because of a few vices 
(which he called by finer names). . . . 

The Pilgrim's Progress. 



CHAPTER I 



THE BISMARCKIAN EPOCH 



All nations dream — some more than others ; while Part il 
some are more ready than others to follow their Chaftbk 

dreams into action. Nor does the prevalence, or '_ 

even the intensity, of these national dreams seem to The ?! s - 

J . . , inarckian 

bear any fixed relation to the strength of will which epoch. 
seeks to turn them into achievement. 

After 1789 there was a great deal of dreaming 
among the nations of Europe. At the beginning of 
it all was revolutionary France, who dreamed of offer- 
ing freedom to all mankind. A few years later, an 
altogether different France was dreaming furiously 
of glory for her own arms. In the end it was still 
France who dreamed ; and this time she sought to 
impose the blessings of peace, order, and uniformity 
upon the whole world. Her first dream was realised 
in part, the second wholly ; but the third ended in 
ruin. 

Following upon this momentous failure came a 
short period when the exhausted nations slept much 
too soundly to dream dreams. During this epoch 
Europe was parcelled out artificially, like a patch- 
work quilt, by practical and unimaginative diploma- 
tists, anxious certainly to take securities for a lasting 

87 



88 THE SPIRIT OF GERMAN POLICY 

Part ii. peace, but still more anxious to bolster up the ancient 

Chapter dynasties. 

L Against their arbitrary expedients there was 

The Bis- soon a strong reaction, and dreaming began once 
epoch. more among the nations, as they turned in their sleep, 
and tried to stretch their hampered limbs. At the be- 
ginning their dreaming was of a mild and somewhat 
futile type. It called itself ' liberalism ' — a name 
coined upon the continent of Europe. It aimed by 
methods of peaceful persuasion, at reaching the 
double goal of nationality as the ideal unit of the state, 
and popular representation as the ideal system of 
government. Then the seams of the patchwork, 
which had been put together with so much labour 
at Vienna * and Aix-la-Chapelle, 2 began to gape. 
Greece struggled with some success to free herself 
from the Turk, 3 and Belgium broke away from 
Holland, 4 as at a much later date Norway severed 
her union with Sweden. 5 In 1848 there were revolu- 
tions all over Europe, the objects of which were the 
setting up of parliamentary systems. In all direc- 
tions it seemed as if the dynastic stitches were coming 
undone. Italy dreamed of union and finally achieved 
it, 6 expelling the Austrian encroachers — though not 
by peaceful persuasion — and disordering still further 
the neatly sewn handiwork of Talleyrand, Metternich, 
and Castlereagh. Finally, the Balkans began to 
dream of Slav destinies, unrealisable either under 
the auspices of the Sublime Porte or in tutelage to 
the Habsburgs. 7 

But of all the nations which have dreamed since 
days long before Napoleon, none has dreamed more 

1 1814. 2 1818. 3 1821-1829. « 1S30. 
6 1905. 6 1859-1S61. 7 1875-1878. 



MAKING OF THE GERMAN UNION 89 

nobly or more persistently than Germany. For the part ii. 
first half of the nineteenth century it seemed as if Chapter 

the Germans were satisfied to behold a vision without 

attempting to turn it into a reality. Their aspira- The bjs- 

. . . . m , j marekian 

tions issued in no effective action. They dreamed epoch. 
of union between their many kingdoms, principalities, 
and duchies, and of building up a firm empire against 
which all enemies would beat in vain ; but until 
1864 they had gone but a few steps towards the 
achievement of this end. 

Then within a period of seven years, Prussia, the 
most powerful of the German states, planned, pro- 
voked, and carried to a successful issue three wars 
of aggression. By a series of swift strokes, the 
genius of Bismarck snatched Schleswig-Holstein from 
the Danes, beat down the pretensions of Austria to 
the leadership of the Teutonic races, and wrested the 
provinces of Alsace and Lorraine from France. 
When Denmark was invaded by Germanic armies 
in February 1864, the vision of unity seemed as 
remote as ever ; by January 1871 it was fully achieved. 
When at Versailles, in the Hall of Mirrors, in the 
stately palace of the Bourbons, King William ac- 
cepted from the hands of his peers — the sovereign 
rulers of Germany — an imperial crown, the dream 
of centuries was fulfilled. 

Austria, indeed, stood aloof ; but both by reason 
of her geographical situation and the heterogeneous 
ancestry of her people that was a matter only of 
small account. Union was, for all practical purposes 
complete. And what made the achievement all the 
more marvellous was the fact, that the vision had 
been realised by methods which had no place in the 
gentle speculations of those, who had cherished the 



90 THE SPIRIT OF GERMAN POLICY 

part ii. hope of unity with the most fervent loyalty. It 

Chapter had been accomplished by the Prussians, who of all 

L races between the Alps and the Baltic, between the 

The Bis- mountain barriers of Burgundy and the Polish 

epoch. 1 * 11 Marshes, are the least German in blood, 1 and who of 

all Germans dream the least. It had been carried 

through, not by peaceful persuasion, nor on any 

principles of Liberalism, nor in any of the ways 

foreseen by the philosophers and poets who had 

beheld visions of the millennium. Union was the 

triumph of craft and calculation, courage and resolve, 

' blood and iron.' 

The world in general, whose thoughts at this time 
were much more congenially occupied with Inter- 
national Exhibitions, and Peace Societies, and the 
ideals of Manchester statesmanship, was inclined to 
regard the whole of this series of events as an ana- 
chronism — as the belated offspring of 'militarism' 
and ' feudalism.' These were well known to be both 
in their dotage; they could not possibly survive for 
many years. What had happened, therefore, did not 
startle mankind, simply because the nature of it was 
not understood. The spirit of the age, wholly 
possessed, as it was, by an opposite set of ideas, 
was unable to comprehend, to believe in, or even 
to consider with patience, phenomena which, accord- 
ing to prevailing theories, had no reasonable basis 
of existence. 

In some quarters, indeed, efforts were made to 
gloss over the proceedings of Prince Bismarck, and 
to fit them into the fashionable theory of a universe, 
flowing with the milk of human kindness and the 

1 The admixture of Slavonic and Wendish blood in the Prussian stock 
is usually calculated by ethnologists at about half and half. 



GERMAN PROSPERITY AFTER UNION 91 

honey of material prosperity. It was urged that Part ii. 
the Germans were a people, pure in their morals, Chapter 
industrious in their habits, the pioneers of higher L 
education and domestic economy. For the most The bjs- 
part, British and American public opinion was epoch.' 
inclined to regard these various occurrences and con- 
quests as a mediaeval masquerade, in rather doubtful 
taste, but of no particular significance and involving 
no serious consequences. Even in that enlightened 
age, however, there were still a few superstitious 
persons who saw ghosts. To their eyes the shade of 
Richard Cobden seemed in some danger of being 
eclipsed in the near future by that of Niccolo Machia- 
velli ; though the former had died in great honour 
and prestige only a few years earlier, while the latter 
had been dead, discredited, and disavowed for almost 
as many centuries. 

After 1870 Germany entered upon a peiiod of 
peaceful prosperity. Forges clanged, workshops 
throbbed, looms hummed, and within twenty years, 
the ebb of emigration had entirely ceased. Indeed, 
not only was there work in the Fatherland for all its 
sons, but for others besides ; so that long before 
another twenty years had passed away, the tide 
had turned and immigrants were pouring in. 

At first the larger part of German exports was 
cheap and nasty, with a piratical habit of sailing 
under false colours, and simulating well-known British 
and other national trade-marks. But this was a 
brief interlude. The sagacity, thoroughness, and 
enterprise of manufacturers and merchants soon 
guided their steps past this dangerous quicksand, 
and the label made in Germany ceased to be a re- 
proach. 



92 THE SPIRIT OF GERMAN POLICY 

Part ii. Students and lovers of truth laboured at dis- 

Chaptbb covery ; and hard upon their heels followed a crowd 

' of practical inventors — the gleaners, scavengers, and 

The Bis- rag-pickers of science. Never had the trade of any 

marckian . *-iri .-,.,' 

epoch. country thriven with a more wonderful rapidity. 
Though still of necessity a borrower by very reason 
of her marvellous expansion, Germany nevertheless 
began to make her influence felt in the financial 
sphere. Her own ships carried her products to the 
ends of the earth, and fetched home raw materials 
in exchange. And not only this, her merchant 
fleets began to enter into successful competition 
for the carrying trade of the world, even with the 
Mistress of the Seas herself. 

For a score of years after the fall of Paris, Germany 
found but little time for dreaming. Meanwhile, by 
an astute if somewhat tortuous policy, and under 
the impenetrable shield of the finest army in Europe, 
Bismarck kept safe the empire which he had founded. 
He declined to be drawn into adventures either at 
home or abroad, either in the new world or the old. 
He opposed the colonial aspirations of a few vision- 
aries, who began to make some noise towards the 
end of his long reign, and silenced them with some 
spacious but easy acquisitions in Africa and the 
East. He consolidated the Prussian autocracy, and 
brought its servant, the bureaucracy, to the highest 
pitch of efficiency. He played with the political 
parties in the Reichstag as if they had been a box of 
dominoes, combining them into what patterns he 
pleased. At the same time he fostered the national 
well-being with ceaseless vigilance, and kept down 
popular discontent by the boldness and thoroughness 
of his social legislation. But for Bismarck himself 



LIFE'S WORK OF BISMARCK 93 

the age of adventure was past. It was enough part ii. 
that by the labours of an arduous lifetime, he had Chapter 
made of Germany a puissant state, in which all her L 
children, even the most restless, could find full scope The Bis- 

e . -, • i • , • marckian 

tor their soaring ambitions. epoch. 



After 
Bismarck. 



CHAPTER II 

AFTER BISMARCK 

paet ii. With the dismissal of Bismarck in 1890, Germany 
Chapter entered upon a new phase. Then once again her 
people began to dream, and this time furiously. 
They had conquered in war. They had won great 
victories in peace. According to their own estimate 
they were the foremost thinkers of the world. They 
found themselves impelled by a limitless ambition 
and a superb self-confidence. But the vision which 
now presented itself to their eyes was disordered and 
tumultuous. Indeed it was less dream than night- 
mare ; and in some degree, no doubt, it owed its 
origin, like other nightmares, to a sudden surfeit — 
to a glut of material prosperity. 1 

Why did Germany with her larger population still 
lag behind Britain in commerce and shipping ? 
Surely the reason could only be that Britain, at 
every turn, sought to cripple the enterprise of her 
young rival. Why had Britain a great and thriving 
colonial empire, while Germany had only a few tracts 
of tropical jungle and light soil, not particularly 
prosperous or promising ? The reason could only 
be that, out of jealousy, Britain had obstructed 
Teutonic acquisition. Why was Germany tending 

1 " L'AUemand est ne bete ; la civilisation l'a rendu mediant." — Heine. 



GERMAN NIGHTMARES 95 

to become more and more isolated and unpopular PartH. 
in Europe ? The reason could only be that the Chapter 

crafty and unscrupulous policy of Britain had in- 1 

trigued, with some success, for her political ostracism. ^^ ck 

It is useless to argue with a man in a nightmare. 
He brushes reason aside and cares not for facts. 
But to seekers after truth it was obvious, that so far 
from making any attack upon German commerce, 
Britain, by adhering to her system of free trade at 
home and in her dependencies, had conferred a boon 
immeasurable on this new and eager competitor. 
So far from hindering Germany's acquisition of 
colonies, Britain had been careless and indifferent 
in the matter ; perhaps too much so for the security 
of some of her own possessions. It was Bismarck, 
much more than Britain, who had put obstacles in the 
way of German colonial expansion. With a sigh of 
relief (as we may imagine) this great statesman 
saw the partition of the vacant territories of the 
world completed, and his fellow-countrymen thereby 
estopped from wasting their substance, and dis- 
sipating their energies, in costly and embarrassing 
adventures. So far from holding aloof from Ger- 
many or attempting to isolate her among European 
nations, we had persisted in treating her with friendli- 
ness, long after she had ceased to be friendly. One 
of our leading statesmen had even gone the length 
of suggesting an alliance, and had been denounced 
immediately by the whole German press, although 
it was understood at the time that he had spoken 
with the august encouragement of the Kaiser and 
his Chancellor. 1 It was Germany herself, deprived 
of the guidance of Bismarck, who by blustering at 

1 Mr. Chamberlain at Leicester on November 30, 1899. 



96 THE SPIRIT OF GERMAN POLICY 

Part ii. her various neighbours, and threatening them in 
Chapter turn, had aroused their suspicions and achieved her 

IL own isolation. 
After The grievances against Britain which figured 

in the phantasmagoria of the German nightmare 
were obviously tinged with envy. There were other 
grievances against France, and these were tinged 
with annoyance. For France, although she had 
been beaten on to her knees, had nevertheless had 
the impudence to make a successful recovery. There 
were also grievances against Russia, and these were 
tinged with fear. Pier vast adjacent territories and 
teeming population, her social and industrial progress, 
the reformation of her government, and the rapid 
recuperation of her military and naval power, con- 
stituted in German eyes the gravest menace of all. 

Self-confidence and ambition were the original 
stuff — the warp and the weft — of which the German 
dream was made ; but these admirable and healthy 
qualities rapidly underwent a morbid deterioration. 
Ambition degenerated into groundless suspicion, and 
self-confidence into arrogance. It was a consider- 
able time, however, before Germany was realised 
to have become a public danger by reason of her 
mental affliction. Until her prophets and high priests 
began preaching from the housetops as a divine ordin- 
ance, that Germany was now so great, prosperous, 
and prolific as to need the lands of her neighbours 
for her expansion, her symptoms were not generally 
recognised. It was not really pressure of popula- 
tion, but only the oppression of a nightmare which 
had brought her to this restless and excited con- 
dition. In terms of psychology, the disease from 
which Germany has been suffering of late years is 



Bismarck. 



TWO FUNDAMENTAL ASSUMPTIONS 97 

known as megalomania, in the slang of the street- PartH. 
corner as madness of the swollen head. Chapter 

The dreams of a nation may be guided well or ill IL 
by statesmen, or they may be left altogether unguided. After 
The dreams of Italy under Cavour, and those of 
Germany under Bismarck, were skilfully fostered 
and directed with great shrewdness to certain 
practical ends. But in considering the case of 
Germany under William the Second, our feeling is 
that although popular imaginings have been con- 
trolled from above with even greater solicitude than 
before, the persons who inspired and regulated them 
have been lacking in the sense of proportion. The 
governing power would seem to have been the victim 
of changing moods, conflicting policies, and dis- 
ordered purposes. 

When we piece together the various schemes for 
the aggrandisement of the Fatherland, which German 
writers have set forth with increasing boldness and 
perfect gravity during the past ten years, we are 
confronted with an immense mosaic — a conception 
of the most grandiose character. On examination 
each of these projects is found to be based upon two 
fundamental assumptions : — The first, that the present 
boundaries of Germany and her possessions over- 
seas are too narrow to contain the legitimate aspira- 
tions of the German race : — The second that it is the 
immediate interest of Germany, as well as a duty 
which she owes to posterity, to remedy this de- 
ficiency, by taking from her neighbours by force 
what she requires for her own expansion. There 
is a third assumption, not however of a political so 
much as an ethical character, which is stated with 

H 



98 THE SPIRIT OF GERMAN POLICY 

PaetH. equal frankness and conviction — that war on an 
Chapter extensive scale is necessary, from time to time, in 
IL order to preserve the vigour of the German people 
After and their noble spirit. 

Bismarck. ^^ school of dreamers, with its gaze fixed upon 
the Atlantic trade-routes, insists upon the absurdity 
of resting content with a western sea-board of some 
two hundred miles. The estuaries of the Elbe and 
the Weser alone are exclusively German ; that of 
the Ems is shared with the Dutch; while the far 
more valuable harbour-mouths of the Rhine and the 
Scheldt are in the possession of Holland and Belgium. 
Put into plain language what this means is, that 
both Holland and Belgium must be incorporated 
in the German Empire ; if by treaty, so much the 
better for all parties concerned ; but if diplomacy 
should fail to accomplish the desired absorption, then 
it must be brought about by war. Nor has it been 
overlooked, that in order to complete the rectification, 
and to secure the keys of the Baltic, it would be 
necessary to ' admit ' Denmark also into the privileges 
of the Germanic Empire. 

Another school looks to the south-east and broods 
upon the day, not far distant, when the Germans of 
Austria-Hungary — a small but dominating minority 
of the whole population — will be driven, by reasons 
of self-defence, to seek a federal inclusion in the 
Empire of the Hohenzollerns. And it is surmised 
that for somewhat similar reasons the Magyars of 
Hungary will at the same time elect to throw in their 
lot with Teutons rather than with Slavs. 

When that day arrives, however, it is not merely 
the German and Magyar territories of the Habsburg 
Emperor-King which will need to be incorporated 



THE AUSTRIAN DOWRY 99 

in the Hohenzollern Empire, but the whole congeries Pakt ii. 
of nations which at present submits, more or less Chapter 

reluctantly, to the rule of Vienna and Buda-Pest. 1 

There must be no break-up of the empire of Francis Atter , 

. i •/» i i Bismarck. 

Joseph, no sentimental sacrifice to the mumbo- 
j umbos of nationality. The Italians of Trieste and 
Fiume, the Bohemians, the Croats, the Serbs, the 
Roumanians of Transylvania, and the Poles of 
Galicia must all be kept together in one state, even 
more firmly than they are to-day. The Germans 
of Austria will not be cordially welcomed, unless they 
bring this dowry with them to the altar of imperial 
union. 

But to clear eyes, looking into the future, more 
even than this appears to be necessary. Austria 
will be required to bring with her, not merely all 
her present possessions, but also her reversionary 
prospects, contingent remainders, and all and sundry 
her rights of action throughout the whole Balkan 
peninsula, which sooner or later must either accept 
the hegemony of the German Empire or submit 
to annexation at the sword's point. Advantageous 
as it would be for the Fatherland to obtain great 
harbours for her commerce at the head of the Adriatic, 
these acquisitions might easily become valueless 
in practice if some rival barred the right of entry 
through the Straits of Otranto. Salonica again, 
in her snug and sheltered corner of the Aegean, is 
essential as the natural entrepot for the trade of 
Asia Minor and the East ; while there can be no 
hope, until the mouths of the Danube, as well as the 
Dardanelles and the Bosphorus, are firmly held, of 
turning the Black Sea into a Germanic lake. 

The absorption of the Balkan peninsula, involving 



100 THE SPIRIT OF GERMAN POLICY 

part ii. as it must the occupation of Constantinople and 
Chapter European Turkey, would carry with it, as a natural 
IL consequence, the custody of the Sultan and the 
After control of his Asiatic dominions. These vast terri- 
tories which extend from Smyrna to the Caucasus, 
from Syria to the Persian Gulf, from the Black Sea 
to the Gulf of Aden, contain some of the richest 
and most fertile tracts upon the surface of the globe. 
Massacre, misrule, and oppression have indeed con- 
verted the greater part of these regions into a state 
hardly to be distinguished from the barest deserts 
of Arabia. But a culture which has lapsed through 
long neglect may be reclaimed by new enterprise. 
All that is required to this end is such shelter 
and encouragement as a stable government would 
afford. 

What more suitable instrument for this beneficent 
recovery than the peculiar genius of the Teuton 
race ? Would not the whole world gain by the 
substitution of settled order for a murderous anarchy, 
of tilth and industry for a barren desolation ? The 
waters of Tigris and Euphrates are still sweet. It 
needs but the energy and art of man to lead them in 
channelled courses, quenching the longings of a 
thirsty land, and filling the Mesopotamian waste 
with the music of a myriad streams. The doom of 
Babylon is no curse eternal. It awaits but the sword 
of Siegfried to end the slumbers of two thousand 
years. Where great cities and an ancient civilisation 
lie buried under drifted sand, great cities may be 
raised once more, the habitations of a hardier race, 
the seminaries of a nobler civilisation. 

This vision, more fanciful and poetically inspired 
than the rest, has already advanced some consider- 



THE WOOING OF TURKEY 101 

able way beyond the frontiers of dreamland. When Bart ii. 
the Turko-Russian War came to an end * the in- Chapter 

fhience of Germany at Constantinople was as nearly '_ 

as possible nil; and so long as Bismarck remained After 

~L _ . Bismarck. 

in power, no very serious enorts were made to in- 
crease it. But from the date of Bismarck's dismissal 2 
down to the present day, it has been the steady aim 
of German policy to control the destinies of the 
Turkish Empire. These attempts have been per- 
sistent, and in the main successful. 

It mattered not what dubious personage or party 
might happen to be in the ascendant at Stamboul, 
the friendship of Germany was always forthcoming. 
It was extended with an equal cordiality to Abdul 
Hamid; to the Young Turks when they overthrew 
Abdul Hamid ; to the Reactionaries when they 
overthrew the Young Turks ; to the Young 
Turks again when they compounded matters with 
the Reactionaries. The largesse of Berlin bankers 
refreshed the empty treasuries of each despot and 
camarilla in turn, so soon as proofs could be pro- 
duced of positive, or even of presumptive predomin- 
ance. At the same time the makers of armaments, 
at Essen and elsewhere, looked to it, that a sufficient 
portion of these generous loans was paid in kind, 
and that the national gain was not confined to high 
policy and high finance. The reform of the Turkish 
army was taken in hand zealously by Prussian 
soldiers. Imperial courtesies cemented the bricks 
which usury, commerce, and diplomacy had laid 
so well. At a time when the late Sultan was ill- 
regarded by the whole of Europe, on account of his 
supposed complicity in Armenian massacres, the 

1 March 1878. Treaty of Berlin, July 1878. a 1890. 



102 THE SPIEIT OF GERMAN POLICY 

Part ii. magnanimity of the Kaiser took pity on the pariah, 
Chapter and a visit of honour to the Bosphorus formed an 
IL incident in the Hohenzollern pilgrimage to the 
After Holy Sepulchre. 

Bismarck. JL ~ pit t •_ 

The harvest ot these endeavours was reaped at 
a later date in the form of vast concessions for lines 
of railway running through Asia Minor to the Persian 
Gulf. It is needless to enter here into a discussion 
of the famous and still unsettled controversy re- 
garding the Baghdad route, except to say that this 
project for the benefit, not merely of Turkey, but 
of the whole human race, was to be realised under 
German direction and according to German plans 
and specifications ; it was to be administered under 
German control ; but it was to be paid for in the main 
out of the savings of England and France. 

The scheme was no less bold than ingenious. Obliga- 
tions were imposed upon Turkey which it was clearly 
impossible for Turkey to discharge. In the event 
of her failure it was likely to go hard with the original 
shareholders, and somewhat hard with the Sublime 
Porte itself ; but on the other hand it was not likely 
to go hard with Germany, or to involve her in 
anything more irksome than a labour of love — a 
protectorate over Asia Minor and Arabia. 1 

These are the main dreams which German writers, 
with a genuine enthusiasm and an engaging frank- 
ness, have set out in the pages of books and periodicals 
— the North Sea dream, the Austrian dream, the 
Balkan dream, and the Levantine dream. But 
these dreams by no means exhaust the Teuton 
fancy. 

Wars are contemplated calmly as inevitable 

1 Cf. The Anglo-German Problem, by C. Sarolea, p. 247, and following. 



ACQUISITION OF AFRICA 103 

incidents in the acquisition of world-power — war partIL 
with France, war with England, war either of army Chapter 
corps or diplomacy with Belgium, Holland, and IL 
Denmark. And as victory is also contemplated, just After 
as confidently, various bye-products of considerable 
value are likely to be secured during the process, 
and as a result. 

The greater part of north-western Africa, which 
lies along the seaboards of the Mediterranean and 
the Atlantic, is under the French flag. The greater 
part of eastern Africa from Alexandria to Capetown 
is in the hands of the British. The central region of 
Africa is Belgian. In the north there is Tripoli 
which is now Italian ; and in various quarters patches 
and scattered islands which are Portuguese. The 
former might be tolerated as a harmless enclave ; 
the latter might readily be acquired by compulsory 
purchase. What would then remain of the Dark 
Continent is already German. So that, as the results 
of the wars and victories which are considered by 
German thinkers to be inevitable, the whole of 
Africa would shortly pass into German hands. 

With the destinies of Africa in the keeping of 
a virile race, accustomed to face great problems in 
no piecemeal fashion, but as a whole, vast trans- 
formations must ensue. Before their indomitable 
will and scientific thoroughness, the dusky savage 
will lay aside his ferocity, and toil joyously at the 
arts of peace. Under an indefatigable and in- 
telligent administration, desert, jungle, forest, and 
swamp will yield their appropriate harvests. Timber, 
oil, cotton, rubber, tea, coffee, and every variety of 
raw material will gradually become available in 
limitless supplies. Jewels and precious metals will 



104 THE SPIRIT OF GERMAN POLICY 

PabtH. be dug out of the bowels of the earth. Flocks and 

Chapter herds will roam in safety over the rich uplands — no 

'_ robber bands to drive them off; no wild beasts to 

After , tear them limb from limb ; no murrain or envenomed 

Bismarck. <• i -it-i 

fly to strike them down by tens of thousands. For 
as the armies of the Kaiser are invincible against 
all human foes, so also are his men of science invin- 
cible, in their ceaseless war against disease of man 
and beast. In the end they also will conquer in 
their own sphere, no less certainly than the soldier 
in his ; for their courage is as high and their de- 
votion faces death, or worse than death, with 
equanimity. 

The Dark Continent, which in all its history has 
never known either peace or order, will then at last 
know both. Even the stiff-necked Africander, 
jealous of his antique shibboleths of freedom, will 
not refuse incorporation in an Empire to which the 
land of his forefathers will already have become bound 
in federal ties. And the dowry which Holland is 
expected to bring with her, will be not only the good 
will of the South African Dutch, but the rich islands 
of the East, where merchant -adventurers planted 
her flag, in days when the fleets of Rotterdam dis- 
puted, not unsuccessfully, with London herself the 
primacy of the seas. 

Finally, there is the dream of the farthest East. 
This is of such simple grandeur that it may be stated 
in a few sentences. When the war between China 
and Japan came to an end in 1895 Germany, acting 
in concert with France and Russia, forced the victori- 
ous troops of the Mikado to forgo all the fruits of 
their conquest. When three years later Germany 
herself seized upon the reversion of Kiao-Chau, she 



THE EASTERN DREAM 105 

saw a vision of an empire, greater than that which part il 
had been secured to her envied rival by the daring of Chapter 

Clive and the forethought of Warren Hastings. If '_ 

England could hold and rule India, a mightier than After 

° . . Bismarck. 

England could surely hold and rule China, containing 
though it does a full quarter of the human race. 



CHAPTER III 

THE GERMAN PROJECT OF EMPIRE 

Part ii. The German project of empire is a gorgeous fabric. 

Chapter The weft of it is thread of gold, but the warp of it 

'_ has been dipped in the centaur's blood. It is the 

The pride of its possessor ; but it is likely to be his un- 

projectof doing. It ravishes his fancy with the symmetry 

empire. an( j vas t ness f ^he pattern ; yet these very two 

qualities, which so much excite his admiration, have 
shown themselves in the past singularly unpropitious 
to high imperial adventures. 

No man of action worthy of the name will ever 
take history for his guide. He would rightly refuse 
to do so, even were it possible, which it is not, to 
write history truthfully. But with all their, de- 
ficiencies, history books have certain sibylline qualities 
which make them worth consulting upon occasions ; 
and as to symmetry and vastness this oracle, if con- 
sulted, would speak clearly enough. Of all false 
enticements which have lured great princes to their 
ruin, these two have the biggest tale of victims to 
their score. 

The British Empire, like the Roman, built itself 
slowly. It was the way of both nations to deal 
with needs as needs occurred, and not before. Neither 
of them charted out their projects in advance, there- 

106 



SYMMETRY AND VASTNESS 107 

after working to tliem, like Lenotre, when he laid partH. 
out the gardens of Versailles. On the contrary, a chapter 
strip was added here, a kingdom there, as time went IIL 
on, but not in accordance with any plan or system. The 
In certain cases, no doubt, the reason for annexa- project of 
tion was a simple desire for possession. But much em P ire - 
more often the motive was apprehension of one kind 
or another. Empire-builders have usually achieved 
empire as an accident attending their search after 
security — security against the ambition of a neigh- 
bour, against lawless hordes which threaten the 
frontier, against the fires of revolution and disorder 
spreading from adjacent territories. Britain, like 
Rome before her, built up her empire piecemeal ; 
for the most part reluctantly ; always reckoning up 
and dreading the cost, labour, and burden of it; 
hating the responsibility of expansion, and shoulder- 
ing it only when there seemed to be no other course 
open to her in honour or safety. Symmetry did not 
appeal to either of these nations any more than vast- 
ness. Their realms spread out and extended, as 
chance and circumstances willed they should, like 
pools of water in the fields when floods are out. 

We cannot but distrust the soundness of recent 
German policy, with its grandiose visions of universal 
empire, if we consider it in the light of other things 
which happened when the world was somewhat 
younger, though possibly no less wise. The great 
imaginative conquerors, though the fame of their 
deeds still rings down the ages, do not make so brave 
a show, when we begin to examine into the per- 
manency of their achievements. The imperial 
projects of Alexander, of the Habsburgs, the Grand 
Monarque, and Napoleon — each of whom drew out 



108 THE SPIRIT OF GERMAN POLICY 

Part ii. a vast pattern and worked to it — are not among those 

Chapter things which can be said with any jnstice to have 

IIL endured. None of them were ever fully achieved ; 

The while some were broken in pieces, even during the 

German , . „ . ,. -, -■ . 

project of lifetimes oi their architects. 

empire. rp o ^ TeSb ^ ^e w h l e world as if it were a huge 

garden, for which one small race of men, who have 
worked busily in a single corner of it, can aspire to 
make and carry out an all-comprehending plan, is 
in reality a proof of littleness and not largeness of 
mind. Such vaulting ambitions are the symptoms 
of a dangerous disease, to be noted and distrusted. 
And none ever noted these tendencies more carefully 
or distrusted them more heartily than the two greatest 
statesmen whom Prussia has produced. Frederick 
the Great rode his own Pegasus-vision on curb and 
martingale. The Great Bismarck reined back the 
Pegasus -vision of his fellow-countrymen on to its 
haunches with an even sterner hand. " One can- 
not," so he wrote in later years — "one cannot see 
' the cards of Providence so closely as to anticipate 
' historical development according to one's own 
' calculation." 

Those very qualities of vastness and symmetry 
which appear to have such fatal attraction for the 
pedantocracy repel the practical statesman ; and 
woe to the nation which follows after the former 
class rather than the latter, when the ways of the 
two part company ! To the foreign observer it 
seems as if Germany, for a good many years past, 
has been making this mistake. Perhaps it is her 
destiny so to do. Possibly the reigns of Frederick 
and Bismarck were only interludes. For Germany 
followed the pedantocracy during a century or more, 



MASTERY OF THE WORLD 109 

while it preached political inaction and contentment PartH. 
with a shorn and parcelled Fatherland. She was chapter 

■ • TTT 

following it still, when Bismarck turned constitu- . 

tionalism out of doors and went his own stern way to The 

. , , , German 

umon. And now once again she seems to be march- project of 
ing in a fatal procession after the same Pied Pipers, empire - 
who this time are engaged, with a surpassing elo- 
quence and fervour, in preaching discontent with 
the narrow limits of a united empire, and in exhorting 
their fellow-countrymen to proceed to the Mastery 
of the World. 

Among an imaginative race like the Germans, 
those who wield the weapons of rhetoric and fancy 
are only too likely to get the better of those surer 
guides, who know from hard experience that the 
world is a diverse and incalculable place, where no 
man, and no acre of land, are precisely the same as 
their next-door neighbours, where history never 
repeats itself, and refuses always — out of malice or 
disdain — to travel along the way which ingenious 
Titans have charted for it. But it is not every 
generation which succeeds in producing a Frederick 
the Great or a Bismarck, to tame the dreamers and 
use them as beasts of draught and burden. 

The complete mosaic of the German vision is an 
empire incomparably greater in extent, in riches, 
and in population, than any which has yet existed 
since the world first began to keep its records. Vision- 
aries are always in a hurry. This stupendous re- 
arrangement of the Earth's surface is confidently 
anticipated to occur within the first half of the 
present century. It is to be accomplished by a 
race distinguished for its courage, industry, and 
devotion, — let us admit so much without grudging. 



110 THE SPIRIT OF GERMAN POLICY 

Part ii. But in numbers — even if we count the Teutons of 

Chapter the Habsburg Empire along with those of the Hohen- 

IIL zollern — it amounts upon the highest computation 

Tlie to less than eighty millions. This is the grain of 

project of mustard-seed which is confidently believed to have 

empire. -^ -^ < ^ e property to get up and spread,' until 

within little more than a generation, it will dominate 

and control more than seven hundred millions of 

human souls. 

Nor to German eyes, which dwell lovingly, and 
apparently without misgiving, upon this appalling 
prospect of symmetry and vastness, are these the 
sum total of its attractions. The achievement of 
their vision would bring peace to mankind. For 
there would then be but two empires remaining, 
which need give the overlords of the world the smallest 
concern. Of these Russia, in their opinion, needs a 
century at least in which to emerge out of primitive 
barbarism and become a serious danger ; while in 
less than a century, the United States must inevitably 
crumble to nonentity, through the worship of false 
gods and the corruption of a decadent democracy. 
Neither of these two empires could ever hope to 
challenge the German Mastery of the World. 

In South America as in North, there is already 
a German garrison, possessing great wealth and 
influence. And in the South, at any rate, it may well 
become, very speedily, an imperative obligation on 
the Fatherland to secure, for its exiled children, more 
settled conditions under which to extend the ad- 
vantages of German commerce and Kultur. President 
Monroe has already been dead a hundred years or 
more. According to the calculations of the pedanto- 
cracy, his famous doctrine will need some stronger 



UNIVERSAL PEACE 111 

backing than the moral disapprobation of a hundred part ii. 
millions of materially-minded and unwarlike people, in Chapter 

order to withstand the pressure of German diplomacy, '_ 

if it should summon war-ships and transports to its The 

German 
aiQ. project of 

So in the end we arrive at an exceedingly strange empire " 
conclusion. For that very thing, which the 
philanthropists have all these years been vainly 
endeavouring to bring about by means of congresses 
of good men, and resolutions which breathe a un- 
animity of noble aspirations, may be achieved in a 
single lifetime by a series of bold strokes with the 
German sword. Then at last Universal Peace will 
have been secured. 

At this point the Prussian professor and the 
pacifist apostle, who turned their backs upon one 
another so angrily at the beginning, and started off, 
as it seemed, in opposite directions, are confronting 
one another unexpectedly at the other side of the 
circle of human endeavour. They ought surely to 
shake hands ; for each, if he be honest, will have 
to own himself the convert of the other. " You 
' admit then after all^" cries the triumphant Pacifist, 
" that Peace is the real end of human endeavour ! " 
" Whether or no," grunts the other in reply, " this 
1 at any rate was the only road to it." 

One wonders — will the Pacifist be content ? He 
has reached his goal sure enough ; though by means 
which he has been accustomed to denounce as the 
end of all true morality ? Will the Professor, on the 
other hand, be well pleased when he discovers that 
by the very triumph of his doctrines he has made 
war for ever impossible, — manliness, therefore, and 
all true virtue likewise impossible, — thereby damning 



112 THE SPIRIT OF GERMAN POLICY 

pabt ii. the souls of posterity to the end of time ? "To put 

Chapter ' questions in this quarter with a hammer, and to 

IIL ' hear perchance that well - known hollow sound 

The ' which tells of blown-out frogs " * — this is a joy, 

projeTof no doubt ; and it is all we are ever likely to arrive 

empire. ^ ^y ^^ cross _ exam i na tion of dreamers. 

1 Nietzsche, The Twilight of Idols. 



CHAPTER IV 

THE NEW MORALISTS 

The dream of German expansion, as year by year Part ii. 
it took firmer hold upon the popular imagination, Chapter 

produced, as might have been expected, a desire '_ 

that it might be realised. From the stage of vague The new 
and ardent longing it was but a short way to the next, 
where a determined will began to put forth efforts 
towards achievement. But as mankind in the mass, 
whether in Germany or England, is still to some 
extent hampered by human nature, by a number 
of habits, traditions, and instincts, and by various 
notions of good and evil, justice and injustice — which 
the subtlest philosophers and most eloquent rhetori- 
cians have not yet succeeded in eradicating — a need 
was felt for what the text-books in their solemn 
nomenclature call an ethical basis. In plain words, 
the German people wanted to have right on their 
side — if possible, old-fashioned, Sunday-school, copy- 
book Right. Failing that, even such a plea as the 
wolf maintained against the lamb would be a great 
deal better than nothing. 

This tendency in a nation to look about for justi- 
fication and a righteous plea, when it is preparing to 
possess itself of property belonging to its neighbours, 
is for the most part a subconscious process, not only 

113 I 



114 THE SPIEIT OF GERMAN POLICY 

Part ii. among the common people, but also among the 

Chapter leaders themselves. It resembles the instinct among 

'_ hens which produces in them an appetite for lime 

The new when the season has come to begin laying. It was 

moralists. , .. , . , r i • t 

through some natural impulse 01 this sort, and not 
through mere cynicism, hypocrisy, or cool calculation, 
that German publicists discovered all the grievances 
which have been already touched upon. For even 
if the possession of these grievances did not altogether 
give the would-be aggressors right up to the point of 
righteousness, it certainly put their neighbours in the 
wrong, and branded the French dove and the British 
lamb with turpitude in the eyes of the German people. 

The grievances against France were, that although 
she had been vanquished in 1870, although her popula- 
tion had actually decreased since that date, and 
although therefore she had neither the right to nor any 
need for expansion, she had nevertheless expanded in 
Africa as well as in the East, to a far greater extent 
than Germany herself, the victorious power, whose 
own population had meanwhile been increasing by 
leaps and bounds. 

The grievances against Britain were that she 
was supposed to have made war upon German trade, 
to have prevented her young rival from acquiring 
colonies, and to have intrigued to surround the 
Teuton peoples with a ring of foes. Britain had 
helped France to occupy and hold her new territories. 
Britain had been mainly responsible for the diplo- 
matic defeat of Germany at Algeciras in 1905 and 
again over Agadir in 1911. Moreover when Germany, 
during the South African war, had attempted, in the 
interests of international morality, to combine the 
nations against us, we had foiled her high-minded 



GRIEVANCES AGAINST ENGLAND 115 

and unselfish endeavours. When at an earlier date Part ii. 
she had sought, by the seizure of Kiao-Chau and Chapter 

by a vigorous concentration, to oust British influence '_ 

and trade from their position of predominance in Tlie uew 

/ ™, . ,, _ _ pci i moralists. 

Ohma, we had countered her enorts by the occupa- 
tion of Wei-hai-wei and the Japanese alliance. 

As regards command of the sea we had likewise 
frustrated German ambitions. After a certain amount 
of vacillation, and a somewhat piteous plea for a 
general diminution of armaments — backed up by 
an arrest of our own, which Germany interpreted, 
perhaps not unnaturally, as a throwing up of the 
sponge and beginning of the end of our naval 
supremacy — we had actually had the treachery (for it 
was nothing less) to upset all her calculations, and 
turn all her efforts and acceleration to foolishness, 
by resuming the race for sea-power with redoubled 
energy. And although to our own eyes, and even 
possibly to the eyes of impartial observers, none of 
these doings of ours — in so far as they were truly 
alleged — could be rightly held to constitute any real 
grievance, that consideration was irrelevant. For 
when a man is in search of a grievance he will find 
it, if he be earnest enough, in the mere fact that his 
intended adversary stammers, or has a wart upon 
his nose. 

German statesmen were happy in having estab- 
lished these grievances to their own satisfaction ; 
but something more was necessary in order that their 
morality might rest upon a sure foundation. German 
policy must be absolutely right, and not merely 
relatively right by contrast with those neighbours 
whose power she sought to overthrow, and whose 
territories she wished to annex. And although this 



116 THE SPIRIT OF GERMAN POLICY 

Part ii. effort to establish. German policy on the principle 
Chapter of Right involved a recasting of Christian morality, 
IV ' it was not shirked on that account. On the con- 
The new trary it was undertaken in a most energetic spirit. 

The first great influence in this readjustment 
of popular conceptions of right and wrong was 
the historian Heinrich von Treitschke. 1 He boldly 
differentiated the moral obligations of the private 
individual from those of a government charged with 
the destinies of a nation. 2 The duties of a man to 
his family, neighbours, and society Treitschke left 
undisturbed. In this sphere of human life the 
teaching of the Sermon on the Mount not only re- 
mained unchallenged, but was upheld and reinforced. 
Statecraft, however, fell under a different category. 

The true principle of private conduct was Love 
for one's Neighbour, but the true principle of the 
state was Power. The duty of a virtuous ruler was 
to seek power, more power, and always more power, 
on behalf of the nation he was called upon to govern. 
The internal power of the state over the action of its 
own subjects was absolute, and it was a duty owed 
by each generation of rulers to posterity, to see to 
it that in their own time, the external power of the 

1 Heinrich von Treitschke, son of a Saxon general of Bohemian-Slavonic 
origin ; born at Dresden 1834. Deafness following upon a fever in childhood 
prevented him from adopting the profession of arms ; 1858-1863 lectured 
on history at Leipzig ; 1863-1866 professor at Freiburg ; 1866-1874 
professor at Heidelberg ; 1874 until his death in 1896 professor of history 
and politics at Berlin. 

2 " Thus it follows from this, that we must distinguish between public 
' and private morality. The order of rank of the various duties must 
' necessarily be for the State, as it is power, quite other than for individual 
' men. A whole series of these duties, which are obligatory on the individual, 
' are not to be thought of in any case for the State. To maintain itself 
' counts for it always as the highest commandment ; that is absolutely 
' moral for it. And on that account we must declare that of all political 
' sins that of weakness is the most reprehensible and the most contemptible ; 
c it is in politics the sin against the Holy Ghost. . . " — Selections, p. 32. 



THE STATE IS POWER 117 

state was increased at the expense of its neighbours. 1 Part ii. 
To secure this end wars were inevitable ; and despite Chapter 

the sufferings which wars entailed, they were far from '_ 

regrettable, for the reason that they preserved the The new 

. . , . . , ., . moralists. 

vigour, unity, and devotion of the race, while stimu- 
lating the virtues of courage and self-sacrifice among 
private citizens. 2 

Nations, he maintained, cannot safely stand 
still. They must either increase their power or lose 
it, expand their territories or be prepared to see them 
shorn away. No growth of spiritual force or material 
well-being within the state will preserve it, if it fails 
to extend its authority and power among its neigh- 
bours. Feelings of friendliness, chivalry, and pity 
are absurd as between nations. To speak even of 
justice in such a connection is absurd. Need and 
Might together constitute Right. Nor ought the 
world to regret the eating-up of weak nations by the 
strong, of small nations by the great, because — a 
somewhat bold conclusion — great and powerful 
nations alone are capable of producing what the 
world requires in thought, art, action, and virtue. 
For how can these things nourish nobly in a timid, 
cowering state, which finds itself driven by force 
of circumstances to make-believes and fictions, to 

1 " That must not hinder us from declaring joyfully that the gifted 
' Florentine, with all the vast consequence of his thinking, was the first 
' to set in the centre of all politics the great thought : The State is power. 
' For that is the truth ; and he who is not man enough to look this truth 
' in the face ought to keep his hands off politics." — Ibid. p. 28. 

2 "... to the historian who lives in the world of will it is immediately 
' clear that the demand for a perpetual peace is thoroughly reactionary ; 
' he sees that with war all movement, all growth, must be struck out of 
' history. It has always been the tired, unintelligent, and enervated 
' periods that have played with the dream of perpetual peace. . . ." — 
Selections, p. 25. 

" It is precisely political idealism that demands wars, while materialism 
' condemns them. What a perversion of morality to wish to eliminato 
' heroism from humanity ! " — Ibid. p. 24. 



118 THE SPIRIT OF GERMAN POLICY 

Part ii. the meanest supplications and to devices of low 
Chapter cunning, in order to preserve an independence which, 
IVj as it can only exist on sufferance, is nothing better 
The new than a sham ? 1 

As the Hohenzollems, the noblest and most capable 
of modern dynasties, had never been content merely 
to reign, but had always maintained their ' divine 
right ' of ruling and dominating the Prussian King- 
dom — as Prussia itself, the most manly and energetic 
of modern nations, had not been content merely to 
serve as the figurehead of a loose confederation, but 
had insisted upon becoming supreme master and 
imposing its own system, policy, and ideals upon 
all Germany — so was it the duty and destiny of united 
Germany, under these happy auspices, having been 
taught and seasoned by long centuries of stern and 
painful apprenticeship, to issue forth in the meridian 
vigour of her age and seize upon the Mastery of the 
World. 

If Treitschke, the eloquent historian, succeeded 
to his own satisfaction and that of a very large pro- 
portion of German statesmen, soldiers, intellectuals, 
and publicists in taking high policy altogether out of 
the jurisdiction of Christian morals, Friedrich Wilhelm 
Nietzsche, 2 the even more eloquent and infinitely 
more subtle poet-philosopher, made a cleaner and 

1 " . . . if we survey history in the mass, it is clear that all real niaster- 
' pieces of poetry and art arose upon the soil of great nationalities " ; and 
" The poet and artist must be able to react upon a great nation. When 
' did a masterpiece ever arise among a petty little nation ? " — Ibid. 
p. 19. 

2 Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche, son of a village pastor of Polish ancestry ; 
born at Rocken in Saxony 1844 ; served in the German army for a few 
months in 1867 ; injured in mounting his horse ; 1869-1879 professor of 
classical philology at Bale which entailed naturalisation as a Swiss subject ; 
served in ambulance in war of 1870-1871 ; 1879-1889 in bad health, wrote 
and travelled ; 1889 became insane and remained so till his death in 
1900. 



FRIEDRICH NIETZSCHE 119 

bolder cut, and got rid of Christian morality even in part ii. 
the sphere of private conduct. Chapter 

Nietzsche was but little interested or concerned IV ' 
in the practical problems of statecraft which engrossed The new 
the patriotic mind of Treitschke. The destinies of " 
the German nation were for him a small matter in 
comparison with those of the human race. But 
nevertheless his vigorously expressed contempt for 
the English, their ways of life and thought, the 
meanness of their practical aims, and the degradation 
of their philosophic ideals, 1 was comforting to his 
fellow-countrymen, who were relieved to find that the 
nation whom they desired to despoil was so despicable 
and corrupt. This train of argument was deceptive 
and somewhat dangerous ; for it led his German 
readers to overlook the fact, that the broad front 
of his attack aimed at enveloping and crushing the 
cherished traditions of the Teuton race no less than 
those of the Anglo-Saxon. 2 

1 " What is lacking in England, and has always been lacking, that 
' half-actor and rhetorician knew well enough, the absurd muddlehead, 
' Carlyle, who sought to conceal under passionate grimaces what he knew 
' about himself : namely, what was lacking in Carlyle, real power of intellect, 
' real depth of intellectual perception, in short, philosophy." — Beyond Good 
and Evil, p. 210. 

" The Englishman, more gloomy, sensual, headstrong, and brutal than 
' the German — is for that very reason, as the baser of the two, also the 
' most pious." — Ibid. p. 211. 

" The English coarseness and rustic demureness is still more satisfactorily 
' disguised by Christian pantomime, and by praying and psalm-singing (or, 
' more correctly, it is thereby explained and differently expressed) ; and 
' for the herd of drunkards and rakes who formerly learned moral grunting 
' under the influence of Methodism (and more recently as the ' Salvation 
' Army '), a penitential fit may really be the relatively highest manifestation 
' of ' humanity ' to which they can be elevated." — Ibid. p. 211. 

" The European ignoblcness, the plebeianism of modern ideas, is 
' England's work and invention." — Ibid. p. 213. 

a " I believe only in French culture, and regard everything else in 
' Europe which calls itself ' culture ' as a misunderstanding. I do not 
' even take the German kind into consideration. . . . The few instances 
' of higher culture with which I have met in Germany were all French in 
' their origin." — Ecce Homo, p. 27. ' 



120 THE SPIRIT OF GERMAN POLICY 

Part ii. Nietzsche's derision and dislike of the Prussian 

Chapter spirit, of militarism, and of what he conceived to 

1 be the spurious principle of nationality, his vague, 

The new disinterested cosmopolitanism or Europeanism, are as 

moralists. <• i • -i • i <• m • i l 

the poles apart irom the aims and ideas ot Ireitschke 
and the German patriots. 1 Nietzsche is not concerned 
to evolve a sovereign and omnipotent state, but a 
high overmastering type of man, who shall inherit 
the earth and dominate — not for their good, but for 
his own — the millions who inhabit it. His ideal is 
a glorious aristocracy of intellect, beauty, courage, 
self-control, felicity, and power, scornfully smiling, 
exuberantly vital. The evolution, ever higher and 
higher, of this fine oligarchy of super-men is the one 
absolute end of human endeavour. The super-men 
will use and direct the force and instincts of ' the 
herd ' — even the capacities of kings, soldiers, law- 



" Wherever Germany extends her sway, she ruins culture." — Ibid. p. 38. 

" Culture and the state are antagonists : a ' culture-state ' is merely a 
' modern idea. The one lives upon the other, the one flourishes at the 
' expense of the other. All great periods of culture have been periods of 
' political decline ; that which was great from the standpoint of culture 
' was always unpolitical — even anti-political. ... In the history of Euro- 
' pean culture the rise of the (German) Empire signifies, above all, a displace- 
' ment of the centre of gravity. Everywhere people are already aware of 
4 this : in things that really matter — and these after all constitute cultures — 
4 the Germans are no longer werth considering. . . . The fact that there 
' is no longer a single German philosopher worth mentioning is an increasing 
' wonder." — The Twilight of the Idols, p. 54. 

" Every great crime against culture for the last four centuries lies on 
' their [the German] conscience. ... It was the Germans who caused 
' Europe to lose the fruits, the whole meaning of her last period of greatness — 
' the period of the Renaissance. . . ." — Ecce Homo, p. 124. 

" The future of German culture rests with the sons of Prussian officers." — 
The Genealogy of Morals, p. 222. 

" If any one wishes to see the ' German soul ' demonstrated ad oculos, 
' let him only look at German taste, at German arts and manners : what 
' boorish indifference to ' taste ' ! " — The Antichrist. 

1 " What quagmires and mendacity there must be about if it is possible, 
' in the modern European hotchpotch, to raise questions of race." 

A Nation — " Men who speak one language and read the same newspapers." 
—The Genealogy of Morals, p. 226. 



THE BLONDE BEUTE 121 

givers, and administrators — to make the world a fit PartH. 
place for their own development. The millions of Chapter 

slaves are to be considered merely as a means to this '_ 

end. Concern about them for their own sakes, above The new 
all pity for their sufferings, or regard on the part ol 
the super-men for their resentment — except to guard 
against it — is a mistake. The serenity of the super- 
man must not allow itself to be disturbed and dis- 
tracted by any such considerations. It is for him 
to take what he needs or desires, to impose order 
on the world, so that it may be a fit environment for 
the evolution of his own caste, and, so far as he can 
compass it, to live like the gods. 1 

It is clear that although Nietzsche chaunts a psean 
in admiration of " the magnificent blonde brute, 
1 avidly rampant for spoil and victory," 2 and although 
he is constantly found, as it were, humming this 
refrain, he had no intention of taking the Prussian 
as his ideal type — still less of personifying Prussia 
itself as a super -state engaged in a contest for 
supremacy with a herd of inferior nations. He does 
not trouble himself in the least about nations, but 
only about individual men. Yet, like others who 
have had the gift of memorable speech, he might 

1 " A boldly daring, splendidly overbearing, high-flying, and aloft-up- 
• dragging class of higher men, who had first to teach their century — and 
' it is the century of the masses — the conception ' higher man.' " — Beyond 
Good and Evil, p. 219. 

" This man of the future, this tocsin of noon and of the great verdict, 
' which renders the will again free, who gives back to the world its goal 
' and to man his hope, this Antichrist and Antinihilist, this conqueror of 
' God and of Nothingness — he must one day come." — The Genealogy of 
Morals, p. 117. 

2 " The blonde beast that lies at the core of all aristocratic races." — The 
Genealogy of Morah, p. 42- 

" The profound, icy mistrust which the German provokes, as soon as 
' he arrives at power, — even at the present time, — is always still an after - 
■ math of that inextinguishable horror with which for whole centuries 
' Europe has regarded the wrath of the blonde Teuton beast." — Ibid. 



122 THE SPIRIT OF GERMAN POLICY 

Part ii. well marvel, were he still alive, at tlie purposes 
Chapter to which his words have been turned by orators and 
1Y ' journalists, desirous to grind an edge on their own 
The new blunt axes. 

General von Bernhardi 1 may be taken as a type 
of the sincere but unoriginal writer who turns all 
texts to the support of his own sermon. He is an 
honest, literal fellow. In spite of all his ecstatic 
nights of rhetoric he is never at all in the clouds — 
never any farther from the earth's surface than 
hopping distance. Notwithstanding, he quietly ap- 
propriates any Nietzschean aphorisms the sound and 
shape of which appear to suit his purpose, and uses 
them to drive home his very simple and concrete 
proposition that it is the duty of Germany to conquer 
the world. 

One imagines from his writings that Bernhardi 
has no quarrel with Christianity, no wish whatsoever 
to overturn our accepted notions of morality. He 
is merely a soldier with a fixed idea, and he is very 
much in earnest. His literary methods remind one 
somewhat of the starlings in spring-time, perched on 
the backs of sheep and cattle, picking off: the loose 
hairs to line their nests. This is the highly practical 
and soldierly use to which he puts philosophers, 
poets, and men of letters generally — laying them under 
contribution to garnish his discourse. 

It is probably true that the average soldier who 
fought on the German side at Ypres and elsewhere 

1 Friedrich von Bernhardi : born 1849 at St. Petersburg, where his 
father Theodor von Bernhardi was a Councillor of the Prussian Legation ; 
entered a Hussar regiment in 1869 ; military attache at Berne in 1881 ; 
in 1897 he was chief of the General Staff of the 16th Army Corps ; in 1908 
he was appointed commander of the 7th Army Corps ; retired in the following 
year. He was a distinguished cavalry general, and is probably the most 
influential German writer on current politico-military problems. 



INFLUENCE OF PHILOSOPHY 123 

was hardly more conversant with the writings of part ii. 
Treitschke, Nietzsche, and Bernhardi than the Chapter 
average British soldier opposed to him was with those IVj 
of Herbert Spencer, Mr. Bernard Shaw, and Mr. The new 
Norman AngelL It is very unlikely, however, that n 
the battle of Ypres would ever have been fought had 
it not been for the ideas which sprang from these 
and similar sources. The influence of the written 
and spoken word upon German policy and action is 
glaringly manifest. 1 It inspired and supported the 
high bureaucrats at Berlin, and had equally to do, 
if indirectly, with the marching of the humblest raw 
recruits shoulder to shoulder to be shot down on the 
Menin Road. For by a process of percolation through 
the press and popular literature, the doctrines of 
these teachers — diluted somewhat, it is true, and a 
good deal disguised and perverted — had reached a 
very wide audience. Though the names of these 
authors were for the most part unknown, though 
their opinions had never been either understood or 
accepted by the common people, the effects of their 
teaching had made themselves felt in every home in 
Germany. 

The German private soldier would not have been 
shot down unless these eloquent sermons had been 
preached. None the less, he had never grasped or 
understood, far less had he adhered to and professed, 
the cardinal doctrines which they contained. He 
still believed in the old-fashioned morality, and 
thought that states as well as individual men were 
bound to act justly. It was this faith which gave 

1 Probably not less so upon British policy and inaction. As water is 
the result of blending oxygen and hydrogen in certain proportions, so is 
the present war the resultant of German militarism and British anti-militar- 
ism in combination. 



124 THE SPIRIT OF GERMAN POLICY 

Part il him his strength, and made him die gladly. For lie 
Chapter believed that Germany had acted justly, the Allies 
IV ' unjustly, that it was his task, along with other good 
The new men and true, to win victory for his Emperor and 
safety for his Fatherland, and to crush the treacher- 
ous and malignant aggressors. 

In spite of all this preliminary discoursing which 
had been going on for many years past, like artillery 
preparation before an infantry attack — about world- 
power, will-to-power, and all the rest of it — nothing 
is more remarkable than the contrast presented, 
immediately after war broke out, between the blatancy 
of those writers who had caused the war and the 
bleating of those (in many cases the same) who 
sought to justify Germany's part in it to their country- 
men and the world. 

On the enlightened principles of Treitschke and 
Bernhardi, Britain would have acted not only wisely, 
but in the strictest accordance with her duty to her 
own state, had she indeed contrived and compassed 
this war, believing circumstances to be favourable 
for herself and unfavourable for Germany. Not 
another shred of right or reason was required. 1 But 
when war actually burst out, all these new-fangled 
doctrines went by the board. Though the ink was 
hardly dry upon Bernhardi's latest exhortation — of 
which several hundred thousand copies had been 
sold, and in which he urged his fellow-countrymen 
to watch their time and make war when it suited 
them, without remorse and no matter on what plea — 

1 " Every State has as sovereign the undoubted right to declare war 
' when it chooses, consequently every State is in the position of being able 
' to cancel any treaties which have been concluded." — Treitschke, Selections, 
p. 15. 

" It is not only the right, but the moral and political duty of the states. 
' man to bring about a war." — Bernhardi, Germany and the Next War, p. 41. 



APOSTASY WHEN WAR CAME 125 

in spite of this fact, there was a singular lack of Part ii. 
Stoicism among ' the brethren ' when war was declared Chapter 

TV 

against Russia and France. When Britain joined in, 1 

and when things began to go less well than had been The new 
expected, btoicism entirely disappeared. Indeed 
there is something highly ludicrous, at the same 
time painful — like all spectacles of human abasement 
— in the chorus of whines and shrill execration, 
which at once went up to heaven from that very 
pedantocracy whose leaders, so short a time before, 
had been preaching that, as between the nations of 
the earth, Might is Right, and Craft is the trusty 
servant of Might. 1 

These scolding fakirs were of an infinite credulity, 
inasmuch as they believed that Sir Edward Grey 
was the reincarnation of Machiavelli. Yet on their 
own principles, what was there in this discovery to 
be in the least shocked at ? British statesmen (it 
is hardly necessary to repeat it) had not walked in 
the footsteps of the Florentine ; had not provoked 
the war; had not wished for it; had tried with all 
their might to prevent it ; but if they had done the 
very reverse, would they not merely .have been 

1 Towards the end of March 1915 General von Bernhardi published in 
the New York Sun an article the object of which was to explain to the 
American people how much his previous writings had been misunderstood 
and perverted by the malice of the enemy. Long before this date, however, 
there was strong presumptive evidence that the distinguished military 
author was unfavourably regarded by the Super-men at Berlin. He had 
been useful before the war for preparing the Teutonic youth for Arma- 
geddon ; but after hostilities began it was discovered that, so far as neutral 
opinion was concerned, it would have been better had he been wholly 
interdicted from authorship under the national motto — verboten. As to 
the tenour of imperial communications to the popular fire-eating publicist 
during the winter 1914-1915, might we venture to paraphrase them into the 
vulgar vernacular as follows ? — " We've got to thank you and your damned 
' books, more than anything else, for the present mess with America. Get 
' busy, and explain them all away if you can." — Any one of the labours of 
Hercules was easier. 



126 THE SPIRIT OF GERMAN POLICY 

Part ii. taking a leaf out of the sacred book of the pedanto- 
Chapter cracy — out of Bernhardi's book, out of Nietzsche's 
book, out of Treitschke's book ? Why, then, all 
The new these unpleasant howlings and ravings ? 

The answers are not hard to find. The careful 
plans and theories of the German bureaucrats had been 
turned topsy-turvy because England had joined in the 
war when, according to the calculations of the augurs, 
she should have remained neutral. That mistake 
must have been sufficiently annoying in itself to dis- 
turb the equanimity even of professional philosophers. 
And further, in spite of all the ingenious, eloquent, 
and sophistical exhortations of the prophets, the 
old morality still kept its hold upon the hearts 
of men. When trouble arose they turned to it 
instinctively — priesthood as well as people — and 
the later gospel fell flat like a house of cards. 
Immediately war came there was an appeal to 
old-fashioned justice, and the altars of the little, 
new-fangled, will -to -power gods were deserted by 
their worshippers. 

When statesmen are laying out policies, and 
moralists are setting up systems, it is worth their 
while to make certain that they are not, in fact, 
engaged upon an attempt to make water flow uphill ; 
above all, that their ingenious new aqueducts will 
actually hold water, which in this instance they 
certainly did not. 



CHAPTER V 

THE STATECRAFT OF A PRIESTHOOD 

The thoroughness and efficiency of the Germans are part il 
admitted even by hostile critics. In the practical Chapter 

sphere they have excelled in military preparations, 1 

in the encouragement of industry, and in the organ- JjJ^'jJ'J" 
isation of finance. But they have achieved an even priesthood. 
more remarkable success than any of these ; for 
they have so arranged their educational system that 
it is drilled hardly less admirably than their army. 1 
From the primary schools to the universities every- 
thing is ordered, so that the plastic mind of youth is 
forced into a political mould which suits the purposes 
of government. Patriotism of the pattern approved 
by the authorities is inculcated directly or indirectly . 
in every class-room. While thought is left osten- 
tatiously free in regard to private morals and re- 
ligious foundations, the duties of the citizen to the 
state, the duties of the state to posterity, the relations 
of Germany to the outside world, are subjects upon 
which independent speculation is not tolerated. 

1 " We may declare that the problem of training in arms and turning 
' to real account the energies of the nation was first undertaken in thorough 
' earnestness by Germany. We possess in our army a characteristic, necessary 
' continuation of the school-system. For many men there is no better means 
' of training ; for them drilling, compulsory cleanliness, and severe discipline 
' are physically and morally indispensable in a time like ours, which unchains 
' all spirits." — Treitschke, Selections, pp. 106-107. 

127 



128 THE SPIRIT OF GERMAN POLICY 

Part ii. Even schoolmasters and professors have their 
Chapter ambitions ; but unless they contribute their quota 
Vj to the support of imperial ideals, their careers are 
The state- unlikely to prosper. It is not enough that a lecturer 
priesthood, should not run counter to state policy ; he must 
actively promote its ends before he can hope to be 
transferred to a sphere of greater dignity and in- 
fluence. Pedagogy is a branch of the Civil Service 
just as much as the Treasury or the Public Health 
Department. Teachers from the lowest to the highest 
grades are the stipendiaries of the bureaucracy. If 
they render useful services they are promoted. If 
they fail to render useful services they are passed 
over. If they indulge in dangerous speculations 
they are sent adrift. Not merely the army, but the 
whole German nation, is disciplined, during the 
period of its impressionable youth, with the object 
of inclining its mind to support state policy through 
thick and thin. 

The schools feed the universities ; the universities 
feed the press, the learned professions, and the 
higher grades in industry and finance. Private 
conversation, as well as what is published in news- 
papers, magazines, and books, bears the impress of 
the official mint to a degree unthinkable in England 
or America, Russia or France. Theories of politics 
are devised by ingenious sophists, exactly as the 
machinery at Essen is contrived by engineers — for the 
express purpose of forwarding Prussian policy. 
History is twisted and distorted in order to prepare 
the way for imperial ambitions by justifying them 
in advance. 

It is a signal triumph for the thoroughness of 
German methods that all the thinkers, dreamers, 



MOBILISATION OF INTELLECTUALS 129 

poets, and prophets, with but a few exceptions, Part ii. 
should have been commandeered and set to work Chapter 
thinking, dreaming, poetising, and prophesying to J^_ 
the glory of the Kaiser, and his army, and his The state- 
navy, and his counsellors, and his world policy, and priesthood. 
the conquests and expansion which are entailed 
therein. 

It is somewhat startling, however, to find the in- 
tellectuals thus mobilised, and all but unanimous, on 
the official side ; for hitherto in history they have 
rarely agreed among themselves, and the greater part 
have usually favoured the Opposition rather than the 
Government. Nor does this close alliance between 
learning and the bureaucracy seem altogether satis- 
factory. For thought loses its fine edge when it is 
set to cut millstones of state. It loses its fine temper 
in the red heat of political controversy. By turning 
utilitarian it ceases to be universal ; and what is 
perhaps even worse, it ceases to be free. It tends 
more and more to become the mere inventor of 
things which will sell at a profit ; less and less the 
discoverer of high principles which the gods have 
hidden out of sight. It would hardly be possible 
to imagine a more complete reversal of attitude 
than that which has occurred in Germany between 
the beginning of the nineteenth century and the 
present time ; and though this change may serve 
admirably the immediate purposes of the state, it 
does not augur well for the future of German thought. 

The similarities and contrasts of history are in- 
teresting to contemplate. In the ferment of thought 
and action which occurred in France during the 
generation preceding the battle of Valmy, and that 
other which has been going on in Germany in the 

K 



130 THE SPIRIT OF GERMAN POLICY 

part ii. generation preceding the battle of the Marne, there 
Chapter are various likenesses and unlikenesses. 

1 In France before the Revolution, as in Germany 

Jraft S of te " to-day, a bureaucracy, responsible solely to the 
priesthood, monarch, directed policy and controlled administra- 
tion. But in France this bureaucracy was incom- 
petent, unpractical, and corrupt. Its machinery 
was clogged with dead matter of every kind, with 
prejudices, traditions, and statutes, many of which 
had outlived their original purposes. The Struld- 
brugs, discovered by Gulliver during his voyages, 
were a race of men whose mortal souls were incased 
in immortal bodies. The French monarchy was of 
this nature, and the soul of it was long since dead. 
Inefficiency was everywhere apparent; and, as a 
natural consequence, the whole system had become 
a butt, at which each brilliant writer in turn levelled 
his darts of derision and contempt. 

In Germany, although the political mechanism 
is the same, the conditions are diametrically the 
opposite. The bureaucracy and the monarchy which 
it supports, have proved themselves highly efficient 
and adaptive. The arrangement has worked with 
a marvellous success. It has cherished the material, 
if not the spiritual, well-being of the people. The 
wealth-producing and belly-filling activities of the 
race have been stimulated to an extent never yet 
attained by any form of government, either popular 
or despotic. Administration has been honest, thrifty, 
and singularly free from the usual dull negatives of 
officialdom and the pedantries of red tape. In all 
directions industrial prosperity has increased, under 
the fostering care of the state, by leaps and bounds. 
Anything more remote from the bankrupt empire of 



IDEAS OF THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 131 

Louis XVI. it would be impossible to conceive. And part ii. 
as a natural consequence, brilliant German writers Chapter 

have for the most part x spent their forces of rhetoric 1 

and fancy in idealising the grandeur and nobility of ^l 8 ^" 
an order of things, under which resources, comfort, priesthood. 
and luxury have expanded with such amazing strides. 

In the case of France the aim of the intellectuals 
was to pull down existing institutions, in that of 
Germany it has been to bolster them up, to extend 
and develop them to their logical conclusions. But 
the second were no less agents of destruction than the 
first. Each alike, as a condition of success, required 
that a new order of moral and political ideas should be 
set up ; each attained a certain measure of success ; and 
the results which followed were those which usually 
follow, when new wine is poured into old bottles. 

The ideas of the French Revolution cast them- 
selves into the mould of republicanism. A picture 
wholly imaginary and fictitious was drawn of the 
institutions of Greece and Rome in ancient days. 
Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity were believed to 
have been the foundations of these famous states. 
Patriots on the banks of the Seine conceived them- 
selves to be re -incarnations of Aristides and the 
Gracchi, of Pericles, of one Brutus or the other — 
it mattered little which. Political idealism passed 
rapidly into a kind of religious fervour. 

The German masquerade is very different from this, 
but it is no less a masquerade. What covers the new 
faith, indeed, is not plumage borrowed from the Greeks 
and Romans, but habiliments which are supposed 
to have clad the heroic forms of ancestral Teutons. 
The student on his way to doctor's degree — the 

1 Nietzsche is one of the rare exceptions. 



132 THE SPIRIT OF GERMAN POLICY 

Part ii. intelligent clerk scanning the high-road to fortune 
Chapter from the eminence of office -stool — dream in their 

'_ pensive leisure to emulate the heroes of Asgard, to 

The state- merit and enjoy the glories of Valhalla. But the 
priesthood, noble shapes and gorgeous colourings in which the 
modern young German of honest, sober, and in- 
dustrious character has chosen to see Ms destiny 
prefigured, are no less imaginary and fictitious than 
those others, with which eloquent notaries'-clerks, 
and emancipated, unfrocked priests, decked them- 
selves out for the admiration of the Paris mob. In 
Germany as in France political idealism passed into 
a kind of religious fervour, -which inspired men to a 
mimicry of old-Wardour-Street shams, and led them 
to neglect the development of their own true natures. 

During quiet times that stream of events, which 
we are wont to call human progress, is occupied in- 
cessantly in throwing up dams, of one sort or another, 
throughout the world. Tree-trunks and logs, which 
have been swept down by former floods of conquest 
and invasion, jam at some convenient rocky angle, as 
the river falls to its normal level. Against these 
obstacles the drift and silt of habit, custom, law, 
convention, prejudice, and tradition slowly collect, 
settle, and consolidate. An embankment is gradually 
formed, and the waters are held up behind it ever 
higher and higher. The tribal pool becomes a pond 
or nation ; and this again, if conditions remain 
favourable — for so long, that is to say, as there are no 
more raging and destructive floods, — extends into a 
lake or inland sea of empire. ..." See," cry the 
optimists, " see what a fine, smooth, silvery sheet of 
c civilisation, culture, wealth, happiness, comfort, and 



RECENT ANXIETIES 133 

1 what not besides, where formerly there was but an Part ii. 
1 insignificant torrent brawling in the gorge ! " . . . Chapter 

But the pessimists, as is their nature, shake their 1 

heads, talk anxiously of the weight of waters which J r h a e ft s jJ^* 
are banking up behind, and of the unreliable character priesthood. 
of the materials out of which the dam has grown. 
" Some day," they warn us, " the embankment 
' will burst under the heavy pressure ; or, more likely 
' still, some ignorant, heedless, or malicious person 
' will begin to riddle and tamper with the casual 
' structure ; and then what may we expect ? " 

There has been considerable nervousness of late 
among rulers of nations as to the soundness of their 
existing barrages. For the most part, however, they 
have concerned themselves with internal dangers — 
with watching propagandists of the socialist per- 
suasion — with keeping these under a kind of benevolent 
police supervision, and in removing ostentatiously 
from time to time the more glaring of their alleged 
grievances. This procedure has been quite as notice- 
able in the case of autocracies, as in countries which 
enjoy popular institutions. 

Treitschke and Bernhardi — even Nietzsche himself 
— valued themselves far more highly as builders-up 
than as pullers - down. It is always so with your 
inspired inaugurators of change. It was so with 
Rousseau and those other writers, whose thoughts, 
fermenting for a generation in the minds of French- 
men, brought about the Revolution. The intellectuals 
of the eighteenth century, like those of the nineteenth, 
aimed at getting rid of a great accumulation of 
insanitary rubbish. But this was only a trouble- 
some preliminary, to be hurried through with as 
quickly as possible, in order that the much greater 



134 THE SPIRIT OF GERMAN POLICY 

part ii. work of construction might proceed upon the cleared 

Chapter Site. 

v - Treitschke made a hole in the German dam when 

The state- he cut an ancient commonplace in two, and tore out 
priesthood, the one half of it. Nietzsche turned the hole into a 
much vaster cavity by pulling out the other half. 
Bernhardi and the pedantocracy worked lustily at the 
business, with the result that a great part of the 
sticks, stones, and mud of tradition are now dancing, 
rumbling, and boiling famously in the flood. Whether 
they have injured our dam as well as their own, we 
are hardly as yet in a position to judge. 

The profounder spirit of Nietzsche realised clearly 
enough the absurdity of supposing that the con- 
flicting beliefs and aspirations of mankind could all 
be settled and squared in a few bustling decades — 
that the contradictions, paradoxes, and antinomies 
of national existence could be written off with a few 
bold strokes of the sword, and the world started off 
on the road to perfection, like a brisk debtor who 
has purged his insolvency in the Bankruptcy Court. 
But the enthusiasm of Treitschke and Bernhardi 
made them blind to these considerations. Had not 
the formula been discovered, which would overcome 
every obstacle — that stroke of genius, the famous 
bisection of the commonplace ? For private conduct, 
the Sermon on the Mount ; for high statecraft, 
Machiavelli's Prince ! Was ever anything simpler, 
except perhaps the way of Columbus with the egg ? 

When we push our examination further, into the 
means which Germany has been urged by her great 
thinkers to employ in preparing for this premeditated 
war, for provoking it when the season should be ripe, 



A POLITICAL PRIESTHOOD 135 

and for securing victory and spoils, we are struck Part ii. 
more than ever by the gulf which separates the ideas Chapter 

of the German pedantocracy from those of the rest 1 

of the world. Nor can we fail to be impressed by ^i 8 *^" 
the matter-of-fact and businesslike way in which the priesthood. 
military and civil powers have set to work to trans- 
late those notions into practice. 

No kind of priesthood has ever yet exercised a 
great and direct influence upon national policy with- 
out producing calamity. And by an ill fate, it has 
always been the nature of these spiritual guides to 
clutch at political power whenever it has come within 
their reach. 

Of all classes in the community who are intellect- 
ually capable of having ideas upon public affairs, a 
priesthood — or what is the same thing, a pedantocracy 
— is undoubtedly the most mischievous, if it succeeds in 
obtaining power. It matters not a whit whether 
they thunder forth their edicts and incitements from 
church pulpits or university chairs, whether they 
carry their sophistical projects up the back stairs of 
Catholic King or Lutheran Kaiser, whether, having 
shaved their heads and assumed vows of celibacy, 
they dwell in ancient cloisters, or, having taken unto 
themselves wives and begotten children, they keep 
house in commonplace villa residences. None of 
these differences is essential, or much worth con- 
sidering. The one class is as much a priesthood as 
the other, and the evils which proceed from the 
predominance of the one, and the other, are hardly 
distinguishable. 

They stand ostentatiously aloof from the sordid 
competitions of worldly business. They have for- 
sworn, or at any rate forgone, the ordinary prizes of 



136 THE SPIRIT OF GERMAN POLICY 

Pake ii. wealth and position. And for these very reasons 
Chapter they are ill equipped for guiding practical affairs. 
Y ' Their abstinences are fatal impediments, and render 
The state- them apt to leave human nature out of their reckon- 
priesthood, ing. They are wanting in experience of the difficulties 
which beset ordinary men, and of the motives which 
influence them. Knowing less of such matters (for 
all their book learning) than any other class of articu- 
lately-speaking men, they find it by so much the easier 
to lay down rules and regulations for the government 
of the world. 

To a priesthood, whether ecclesiastical or 
academic, problems of politics and war present 
themselves for consideration in an engaging sim- 
plicity. They evolve theories of how people live, 
of how they ought to live ; and both sets of theories 
are mainly cobwebs. There is no place in their 
philosophy for anything which is illogical or untidy. 
Ideas of compromise and give-and-take are 
abominations in priestly eyes — at any rate when they 
are engaged in contemplation of worldly affairs. 
And seeing that the priesthood aspires, nevertheless, 
to govern and direct a world which is illogical and 
needs humouring, there is nothing wonderful, if when 
it has achieved power, it should blunder on disaster 
in the name of principle, and incite men to cruelties 
in the name of humanity. ' Clericalism,' said a 
French statesman, and English statesmen have 
echoed his words — ' Clericalism is the enemy.' And 
this is right, whether the priesthood be that of Rome 
or John Calvin, of economic professors expounding 
Adam Smith in the interests of Manchester, or 
history professors improving upon Treitschke in the 
interests of the Hohenzollern dynasty. 



PRIESTS AND LAWYERS 137 

Priests and professors when they meddle in part ii. 
politics are always the same. They sit in their Chapter 

studies or cells, inventing fundamental principles ; '_ 

building thereon great edifices of reasoned or senti- The state- 
mental brickwork which splits in the sun and crumbles priesthood. 
in the storm. Throughout the ages, as often as 
they have left their proper sphere, they have been 
subject to the same angry enthusiasms and savage 
obstinacies. Their errors of judgment have been 
comparable only to their arrogance. Acts of cruelty 
and treachery, meanness and dishonour, 1 which would 
revolt the ordinary German or Englishman, com- 
mend themselves readily, on grounds of sophistry 
or logic, to these morbid ascetics, so soon as they 
begin busying themselves with the direction of public 
affairs. 

It would be unfair to judge any country by its 
political professors. At the same time, if any country 
is so foolish as to follow such guides, there is a proba- 
bility of mischief in national — still more in international 
— affairs. For they are as innocent as the lawyers 
themselves, of any knowledge of the real insides of 
things. They differ of course from the lawyers in 
many ways. They are ever for making changes for 
the sake of symmetry ; while the man of law is for 
keeping as he is until the last moment ; or at any 
rate until it is clearly his interest to budge. A 
priesthood has a burning faith in its own hand- 
wrought idols ; the lawyer on the contrary, does 
not go readily to the stake, does not catch fire easily, 
being rather of the nature of asbestos. When lawyers 
monopolise political power — even when they merely 

1 Cf. Professor Kuno Meyer, Times, December 24, 1914, and March 8, 
1915. 



138 THE SPIRIT OF GERMAN POLICY 

paet ii. preponderate, as of late years they have seemed to 
Chapter do more and more in all democratic countries, 
v " whether of the monarchical or republican type — 
The state- they invariably destroy by insensible gradations 
priesthood, that which is most worth preserving in man or state, 
the soul. But they do not bring on sudden cata- 
strophe as a priesthood does ; their method is to 
strangle slowly like ivy. 

In England, nowadays — indeed ever since the 
'eighties, when professors of Political Economy be- 
came discredited as political guides — there are not 
many evidences of priestly influence. Certainly there 
is nothing of an organised kind. What exists is 
erratic and incalculable. There is much clamour ; 
but it is contradictory, spasmodic, and inconstant, 
without any serious pretence, either of learning or 
science, to support it. Each of our prophets is in 
business for himself. There is no tinge of Erastian- 
ism about any of them. For the most part they 
are the grotesques and lions comiques of the 
world of letters, who prophesy standing on their 
heads, or grinning through horse-collars, and mis- 
taking always " the twinkling of their own sophistic- 
' ated minds for wisdom." 

Alliance between a priesthood and a bureaucracy 
tends gradually to produce, as in the case of China, 
an oppressive uniformity — not unlike that aimed at 
by the more advanced socialists — where every 
fresh innovation is a restriction hampering the 
natural bent. On the other hand an alliance between 
a priesthood and a military caste — especially when 
the bureaucracy is ready to act in sympathy — 
is one of the commonest causes of international 
convulsions. 



PRIESTS AND SOLDIERS 139 

Oddly enough, the soldier, who affects to despise part ii. 

men of words and make-believes, and who on this Chapter 

v 
account has an instinctive dislike and distrust of '_ 

the lawyer — so violent indeed that it often puts him The state - 

« pi cra °' a 

m the wrong, and leaves him at the mercy of the priesthood. 

object of his contempt — is dangerously apt to become 
the tool of anything which bears a likeness to Peter 
the Hermit. It is not really the lawyer's confidence 
in the efficacy of words which revolts the soldier, 
nearly so much as the kind of words used, the tem- 
perament of him who uses them, and the character 
of the make-believes which it is sought to establish. 
The unworldliness, simplicity, idealism, and fervour 
of the priesthood make strong appeals to a military 
caste, which on the contrary is repelled by what it 
conceives to be the cynicism, opportunism, and self- 
seeking of lawyer statecraft. 

More especially is it difficult for the military caste 
to resist the influence of the priesthood when, as in 
Germany of recent years, they have insisted upon 
giving the warrior the most important niche in their 
temple, and on burning incense before him day and 
night. Working industriously in their studies and 
laboratories they have found moral justification for 
every course, however repugnant to established ideas, 
which may conceivably make it easier to attain 
victory and conquest. The soldier might have 
scruples about doing this or that ; but when he is 
assured by inspired intellectuals, that what would 
best serve his military ends is also the most moral 
course of action, how can he — being a man of 
simple mind — presume to doubt it ; though he may 
occasionally shudder as he proceeds to put it into 
execution ? 



140 THE SPIRIT OF GERMAN POLICY 

Part ii. German thoroughness is an admirable quality, 
Chapter but even thoroughness may be carried to extremes 

1 which are absurd, or something worse. 

The state- ~$ na tion has a right to complain if another 
priesthood, chooses to drill armies, build fleets, accumulate stores 
of treasure, weapons, and material ; nor is it incum- 
bent upon any nation to wear its heart upon its 
sleeve, or to let the whole world into its secrets, 
military or political. In so far as Germany has 
acted upon these principles she was well within her 
rights. As a result we have suffered heavily ; but 
we must blame ourselves for being ill-prepared ; 
we have no justification for complaining because 
Germany was well-prepared. 

There are some kinds of preparation, however, 
which it does not seem possible to justify, if the 
world is to consist as heretofore of a large number 
of independent states, between whose citizens it 
is desirable to maintain a certain friendliness and 
freedom of intercourse, German activities in various 
directions, for many years before war broke out, 
make one wonder what state of things was con- 
templated by German statesmen, as likely to prevail 
when war should be over. What, for instance, 
is to be the status of Germans visiting or residing 
in other countries — seeking to trade with them — to 
borrow money from them — to interchange with 
them the civilities of ordinary life, or those more 
solemn courtesies which are practised by societies of 
learning and letters ? Will the announcement civis 
Germanicus sum be enough henceforth to secure the 
stranger a warm welcome and respect % Or will such 
revelation of his origin be more likely to lead to his 
speedy re-embarkation for the land of his nativity ? 



GERMAN AGENCIES 141 

Spying has always been practised since the begin- part ii. 
ning of time ; but it has rarely been conducted in Chapter 

such a manner as to produce general uneasiness, or '_ 

any sensible restraint upon private relations. Logic- The state- 
ally, it would be unfair to condemn recent German priesthood. 
enterprises in this direction, seeing that she has only 
extended an accepted nuisance on to a much vaster 
scale. But here again logic is a misleading guide. 
There is something in the very scale of German 
espionage which has changed the nature of this 
institution. It has grown into a huge organised 
industry for the debauching of vain, weak, and greedy 
natures ; for turning such men — for the most part 
without their being aware of it — into German agents. 
The result of Teutonic thoroughness in this instance 
is a domestic intrusion which is odious, as well as a 
national menace which cannot be disregarded. Many 
of these hostile agencies may surely be termed 
treacherous, seeing that they have aimed, under the 
guise of friendly intercourse, at forwarding schemes 
of invasion and conquest. 

We are familiar enough with the vain purse-proud 
fellow, who on the strength of a few civil speeches 
from the Kaiser — breathing friendship and the love of 
peace — has thenceforward flattered himself that his 
mission in life was to eradicate suspicion of German 
intentions from the minds of his British fellow- 
countrymen. This is the unconscious type of agent, 
useful especially in sophisticated circles, and among 
our more advanced politicians of anti-militarist 
sympathies. 

Then we have the naturalised, or unnaturalised, 
magnate of finance or industry, to whom business 
prosperity is the great reality of life, politics and 



142 THE SPIKIT OF GERMAN POLICY 

Part ii. patriotism being by comparison merely things of the 
Chapter illusory sort. It would cause him no very bitter 
Vj anguish of heart to see England humiliated and her 
The state- Empire dissolved, providing his own cosmopolitan 
priesthood, undertakings continued to thrive undisturbed by 
horrid war. He, also, has very likely been the 
recipient of imperial suavities. In addition to this, 
however, he has been encouraged to imagine that 
he enjoys in a peculiar degree the confidence of the 
German Foreign Office. The difficulties which so 
shrewd a fellow must have in believing in the in- 
nocence of German intentions must be considerable 
at the outset ; but they are worn away by the 
constant erosion of his private interests. Britain 
must not cross Germany : — that is his creed in a 
nutshell. This is the semi-conscious type of agent ; 
and he carries great weight in business circles, and 
even sometimes in circles much higher than those 
frequented by the money-changers. 

We may resent such influences as these, now that 
we have become more or less sensible of the effect 
which they have had during recent years in hindering 
our preparations for defence ; but here we cannot 
fairly charge Germany with any breach of custom 
and tradition. We must blame ourselves for having 
given heed to these counsellors. But it is different 
when we come to such things as the wholesale cor- 
ruption of the subjects of friendly nations — a network 
of careful intrigue for the promotion of rebellion — 
lavish subsidies and incitements for the purpose of 
fostering Indian unrest, Egyptian discontent, and 
South African treason — the supply of weapons and 
munitions of war on the shortest notice, and most 
favourable terms, to any one and every one who 



GERMAN METHODS AT WORK 143 

seems inclined to engage in civil war in Ireland or partii. 

elsewhere. Chapter 

The whole of this procedure has been justified '_ 

in advance and advocated in detail by Bernhardi The state - 

crfift of n, 

and the priesthood. Belgium, France, Russia, and priesthood. 
Britain are doubtless peculiarly alive to the iniquity 
of these practices, for the reason that their moral 
judgment has been sharpened by personal suffering. 
But they do not denounce the system solely because 
they themselves have been injured by it, but also 
because it seems to them to be totally at variance 
with all recent notions regarding the comity of 
nations. If we may use such an old-fashioned term, 
it appears to us to be wrong. 

If methods such as these are henceforth to be 
practised by the world in general, must not all inter- 
national communion become impossible, as much in 
time of peace as during a war ? Indeed must not 
human existence itself become almost intolerable ? 
Friendliness, hospitality, courtesies of every sort, 
between men and women of one country and those 
of another, must cease absolutely, if the world should 
become a convert to these German doctrines. Travel 
must cease ; for no one likes to be stripped naked 
and searched at every frontier. Trade and financial 
operations must also be restricted, one would imagine, 
to such an extent that ultimately they will wither 
and die. 

And if the world in general after the war is ended 
does not become a convert to these German doctrines 
of treacherous preparation, made in friendly territories 
during time of peace, what then will be its attitude 
towards Germany and the Germans ; for they pre- 
sumably have no intention of abandoning these 



144 THE SPIEIT OF GERMAN POLICY 

Part ii. practices ? It is an unpleasant problem, but it will 

Chapter have to be faced sooner or later. 

Y ' For obviously, although every sensible man be- 

The state- Heves, and many of us know by actual experience, 

priesthood, that the instincts of Germans, in all private rela- 
tions, are as loyal and honourable as those of most 
other races which inhabit the earth, no nation can 
afford any longer to have dealings with them on 
equal terms, if they have decided to allow their 
instincts to be used and abused, over-ridden and 
perverted, by a bureaucracy whose ideal is thorough- 
ness, and by a priesthood which has invented a new 
system of morals to serve a particular set of ends. 
Not only the allied nations which are at present at war 
with Germany, but any country whose interests may 
conceivably, at any future time, come into conflict 
with those of that far-sighted empire, will be forced 
in self-defence to take due precautions. It is clear 
enough that more efficacious means than mere scraps 
of naturalisation paper will be needed to secure 
mankind against the abuse of its hospitality by 
Teutonic theorists. 

The whole of this strange system, those methods 
which, even after somewhat painful experience of 
their effects, we are still inclined in our less reflective 
moments to regard as utterly incredible — is it possible 
to summarise them in a few sentences ? What are 
the accepted maxims, the orthodox formulas of 
Prussian statecraft ? 

Power, more power, world-power ; these accord- 
ing to German theory, as well as practice, should be 
the dominant principles of the state. 

When a nation desires territories belonging to its 
neighbours, let it take them, if it is strong enough. 



THE GERMAN CREED 145 

No further justification is needed than mere appetite part n. 
for possession, and the strength to satisfy it. Chapter 

War is in itself a good thing and not a bad. Like '_ 

a purge, or a course of the waters of Aix, it should be Tlie state - 

craft of a 

taken, every half-century or so, by all nations which priesthood. 
aim at preserving the vigour of their constitutions. 

During the intervening periods the chief duty of 
the state is to prepare for war, so that when it 
comes, victory, and with it benefits of the material, 
as well as of the spiritual sort, may be secured. 

No means which will help to secure victory are 
immoral, whether in the years preceding the outbreak 
of hostilities, or afterwards, when the war is in full 
course. If the state, aided by its men of science, 
could find any safe and secret means of sending a 
plague, as an advance guard, to ravage the enemy, 
where is the objection ? The soul of a Prussian 
soldier might revolt against this form of warfare, but 
at what point would it conflict with the teachings of 
the priesthood ? Nor can we imagine, were the thing 
possible, that the bureaucracy would allow itself to 
be hampered by any scruples. 

As to the declaration of war, let it be made when 
the state is in a strong position and its prey in a 
weak one. This is the all-important consideration. 
The actual pretext is only a secondary matter, though 
worthy of attention for the effect it may have on the 
action of neutrals. And as war is a game of chance, 
it is wise and right to ' correct fortune,' so far as 
this can be accomplished during years of peace and 
under the cloak of amity, by the aid of spies, secret 
agents, accomplices, traitors, rebels, and what not 
besides. 

The state which has evolved this system and laid 

L 



146 THE SPIRIT OF GERMAN POLICY 

Part ii. down these rules, without the least attempt at secrecy 

Chapter or concealment, is the most efficient machine of the 

'_ fighting and administrative kind at present existing 

The state- i n the world — perhaps which has ever existed in the 

Cr&ffc of £L A J- 

priesthood, world. But as you increase the size, power, and 
complexity of a machine there are obvious dangers 
unless you can also increase the calibre of the men 
who have to drive and direct it. This is a much 
more difficult problem than the other ; and there is 
no evidence to show that it has been solved in the 
case of Germany. The more powerful the machine, 
the greater is apt to be the disaster if it is mishandled. 

In history the blunders of bureaucracy are a by- 
word. They have been great and many, even when, 
as in Germany to-day, the bureaucracy is in the full 
vigour of its age, and in the first flower of uprightness ; 
for a bureaucracy, in order to retain its efficiency, 
must remain incorruptible, and that is one of the 
hardest things to secure. 

As for the priesthoods, if they are to be of any use, 
their faith must burn brightly. And the faith of a 
priesthood is very apt to burn itself out — very apt 
also to set fire to other things during the process ; 
even to the edifice of popular virtue and the imperial 
purple itself, which things — unlike the Phoenix, the 
Salamander, and the Saint — are none the better or 
stronger for being burned. 

We are constantly being told by high authorities 
that the moral objective of the present war is ' to 
put down militarism,' and ' abolish it ' off the face 
of the earth. There are few of us who do not wish 
that this aim may be crowned with success ; but 
militarism is a tough weed to kill, and something 



MAIN OBJECT OF THE WAR 147 

more than the mere mowing of it down by some Part ii. 
outside scythesman will be necessary, one imagines, Chapter 

in order to get rid of it. '_ 

The true moral objective of the war is something The state - 

^^ (•vjj.it of i 

much more important than this. A blacker evil than priesthood. 
militarism is that violation of private trust and 
public honour which is known as the Prussian 
System, and which has recently been ' marching 
through rapine, to the disintegration,' not of a single 
nation, or group of nations, but of the whole fabric 
of human society, including its own. It is an 
elaborate contrivance of extreme artificiality, a 
strange perversion of the nature of man. These are 
its inherent weaknesses ; and fortunately, by reason 
of them, it is more vulnerable to hard blows than 
militarism which, with all its vices, and extrava- 
gancies, is rooted in instincts which are neither 
depraved nor ignoble. 

Militarism might continue to thrive under adver- 
sity, and after the heaviest defeat, as it has done in 
times past ; but the life of the Prussian System — 
that joint invention of the most efficient bureau- 
cracy in the world, and of a priesthood whose in- 
dustry can only be matched by its sycophancy and 
conceit — hangs upon the thread of success. Like 
the South Sea Bubble, or any of those other im- 
postures of the financial sort, which have temporarily 
beguiled the confidence of mankind, it must collapse 
utterly under the shock of failure. It depends 
entirely on credit, and its powers of recuperation are 
nil. When its assets are disclosed, the characters of 
its promoters will be understood. The need, therefore, 
is to bring it at all costs to a complete demonstration 
of failure. 



148 THE SPIRIT OF GERMAN POLICY 

Part ii. We have been urged by our own anti-militarists 
Chapter not to inflict suffering and humiliation on Germany. 

1 But this is not a matter of the slightest importance 

The state- one wa y or the other. It has but little to do with the 
priesthood, issue which it is our business to settle, if we have the 
good fortune to come out victorious from the present 
struggle. To set up the suffering and humiliation of 
Germany as the object of high policy would cover 
the Allies with contempt ; but to shrink from such 
things, if they should happen to stand between the 
Allies and the utter moral bankruptcy of the Prussian 
System, would overwhelm them with a burden far 
heavier 'and more shameful than contempt. 

Note. — Since publication a friend has passed the just criticism upon 
pages 135 to 137, that their terms would include all the great statesmen 
of the Roman Church — Lanfranc, Ximenes, Wolsey, Richelieu, etc. etc. 
This of course was not the writer's intention ; but it is impossible in a 
footnote to do more than admit the error. There is an essential dis- 
tinction between the Priest as Statesman, clothed with power and responsi- 
bility, and Priestly Influence in statecraft — influence without responsi- 
bility. 



CHAPTER VI 

THE DEVIL'S ADVOCATE 

A German might fairly contend that British pakt ii. 
criticism of his moral ideas and political system is Chapter 
tainted throughout by ignorance and prejudice, __1 
and that all our talk of autocracy, bureaucracy, The devil's 
pedantocracy, military caste, and sham constitution- 
alism is merely an attempt to avoid the real issue by 
calling things, which we happen to dislike, by bad 
names. Political institutions, he might insist, must 
be judged by their fruits. 

" We Germans," writes a correspondent, the 
Freiherr von Hexenkuchen, 1 " are not inferior in in- 
1 telligence or education to any other race. Had 
' this been so, we could never have reached, in so 
1 short a period as four decades, the proud position 
' which we now occupy in science, invention, manu- 
' facture, commerce, finance, and administration. 2 
1 Consequently, if we are well content to live under 
' the institutions we possess, this cannot be put down 
1 either to our want of enterprise or to the dulness 
1 of our understandings. 

1 This letter, which is dated April 1, 1915, arrived at its destination 
(via Christiania and Bergen) about ten days later. 

* The empires which during the past forty years have made the greatest 
relative material progress are undoubtedly Germany and Japan — neither 
of them a democracy, but both military states. 

149 



150 THE SPIRIT OF GERMAN POLICY 



Part II. 

Chapter 
VI. 

The devil's 
advocate. 



" Our people have already shown that they are 
' willing to fight and die for these very institutions 
' which you Englishmen affect to regard with so much 
' contempt. Possibly your people are equally willing 
' to fight and die for theirs. I do not deny this ; 
' but it is not yet proved ; it remains to be proved. 

" I do not assert that your people are inferior to 
' mine in their readiness to fight and die when they 
e are actually faced with a great national danger. 
' But I do claim that mine are superior to yours in 
' the constancy of their devotion to duty. For a 
' hundred years past — not only in periods of stress 
' and danger, which stirred the national imagination, 
' but equally in times of peace and prosperity, which 
' always tend to encourage the growth of comfort and 
' the love of ease — each succeeding generation has 
' been found willing to train itself in the use of arms, 
' so as to be prepared, if occasion should arise, to 
' defend the Fatherland. 

" When the present war broke out was there a 
' firmer loyalty or a more patriotic response to the 
' call to arms among your people or among mine ? 
' Will your people fight and sutler more gladly for 
' their ' democratic ' ideals than mine will for their 
' Kaiser and Fatherland ? . . . Surely, upon your 
' own principles no comparison should be possible 
' between the warmth of your devotion and the 
' tepidity of ours. 

" Is our system really so reactionary and mechani- 
' cal as you imagine ? In an age which has learned 
' as its special lesson the advantages, in ordinary 
' business affairs of life, of organisation, thoroughness, 
' long views, reticence, and combined effort, guided 
' by a strong central control, is it reaction, or is it 



THE GERMAN BUREAUCRACY 151 

progress, to aim at applying the same principles to Part ii. 
the greatest, most complex, and infinitely most Chapter 

important of all businesses — that of government '_ 

itself ? Can a nation hope to survive which refuses, The devil ' s 
in the name of freedom, to submit to control in 
these respects, if it should be faced by competition 
with another, which has been wise enough to employ 
quiet experts instead of loquacious amateurs — 
any more than a cotton mill could escape bank- 
ruptcy were it managed on a system of party 
government ? 

" Our civil service, which you are pleased to 
describe as a Bureaucracy, is distinguished among 
all others existing at the present time, by the calibre 
of its members, by its efficiency and honesty, by its 
poverty, and not less by the honour in which it is 
held notwithstanding its poverty. You laugh at 
our love for calling men, and also their wives, by 
the titles of their various offices — Herr this and Frau 
that, from the humblest inspector of drains to the 
Imperial Chancellor himself ! And no doubt there 
is a ludicrous side to this practice. But it marks 
at least one important thing — that membership 
of our civil service is regarded as conferring honour. 
So far, we have succeeded in maintaining public 
officials of all grades in higher popular respect than 
men who devote their lives to building up private 
fortunes, and also to those others who delight 
and excel in interminable debate. 

" You are used to boast, and I daresay rightly, 
of the personal honesty and pecuniary disinterested- 
ness of your politicians ; and you assume as a matter 
of course that your civil servants, with such high 
standards and examples ever before their eyes, are 



152 THE SPIRIT OF GERMAN POLICY 



Part II. 

Chapter 
VI. 

The devil's 
advocate. 



likewise incorruptible. We invert this order. With 
us the honour of our civil servants is the chief thing ; 
we assume that our politicians must follow suit. 
They are probably as upright as your own, thanks 
partly to tradition, but also to the vigilance of their 
superiors, the professionals, who carry on the actual 
business of government. With you the fame of 
the showy amateur fills the mouths of the public. 
We, on the contrary, exalt the expert, the man 
who has been trained to the job he undertakes. In 
so doing we may be reactionaries and you may be 
progressives ; but the progress of Germany since 
1870 — a progress in which we are everywhere either 
already in front of you, or else treading closely on 
your heels — does not seem to furnish you with a 
conclusive argument. 

" As for what you call our Pedantocracy, meaning 
thereby our professors and men of letters, it is true 
that these exercise a great influence upon public 
opinion. We have always respected learning and 
thought. It is in the German nature so to do. I 
admit that our learned ones are rather too much 
inclined to imagine, that because they are students 
of theory, they are therefore qualified to engage in 
practice. They are apt to offer their advice and 
services officiously, and occasionally in a ridiculous 
manner. But, if my recollection of the English 
newspapers be correct, this is no more so with us 
than with you. There is apparently something 
in the professorial nature which impels men of this 
calling to the drafting of manifestoes and the 
signing of round-robins in times of excitement. 
They may be officious and absurd, but they are not 
wholly despicable, since they act thus quite as much 



THE MILITARY CASTE 153 

from earnestness as from vanity. If our academi- Part ii. 
cians on such occasions mislead more people than Chapter 

• i VT 

your own it is due to their virtues, to the greater '_ 

zeal and success with which they have won the The devil's 
confidence of their former pupils. 1 

" You are fond of sneering at our Military Caste 
and attribute to it the most malign influence upon 
public affairs. But there again, believe me, you 
exaggerate. Our officers are undoubtedly held in 
great respect, even in some awe. And the reason 
is that they are known to be brave, and like those 
you call the bureaucracy, to have preferred com- 
parative poverty in the public service to the pursuit 
of riches. To say that they have no influence upon 
policy would of course be absurd. It is inevitable 
that, in the present state of the world, soldiers will 
always have great influence in certain departments 
of public affairs. This must be so in any country 
which is not plunged in dreams. For it is their 
business to guarantee national security, and to keep 
watch over the growth of military strength among 
the neighbours and rivals of Germany. If the 

1 It is not quite clear to what incidents the Freiherr is referring. He 
may be thinking of a certain round-robin which appeared a few days before 
the war, giving a most handsome academic testimonial of humanity and 
probity to the German system ; or he may have in mind a later manifestation 
in February last, when there suddenly flighted into the correspondence 
columns of the Nation a ' gaggle ' of university geese, headed appropriately 
enough by a Professor of Political Economy, by name Pigou, who may be 
taken as the type of that peculiarly British product, the unemotional 
sentimentalist. To this ' gaggle ' of the heavier fowls there succeeded in 
due course a ' glory ' of poetical and literary finches, twittering the same 
tune — the obligation on the Allies not to inflict suffering and humiliation on 
Germany — on Germany, be it remembered, as yet unbeaten, though this 
was rather slurred over in their spring-song of lovingkindness. The Freiherr, 
plunged in his heathen darkness, no doubt still believed Germany to be not 
only unbeaten but victorious, and likely to continue on the same course. 
He must therefore have been somewhat puzzled by so much tender concern 
on the part of our professors, etc. for sparing his feelings at the end of the 
war. 



154 THE SPIRIT OF GERMAN POLICY 



Part II. 

Chapter 
VI. 

The devil's 
advocate. 



' general staff foresees dangers, and can give reason- 
1 able grounds for its anticipations, it is clear that the 
' military view must carry weight with the Kaiser 
' and his ministers. And surely there can be no 
' question that this is right. 

" The officers of the German Army are a caste, 
' if you like to put it that way. But in every form 
' of government under the sun, unless conceivably 
' in some tiny oriental despotism, the predominance 
' of a certain caste, or the competition between 
' different castes, is absolutely essential to the working 
' of the machinery. 

"It is not regrettable in our opinion if a caste, 
' which has considerable weight in public affairs, is 
' a manly one, contemptuous of wealth and sophistry, 
' ready always to risk its own life for the faith which 
' is in it. The influence of a military caste may have 
' its drawbacks ; but at any rate it has kept the 
' peace in Germany for not far short of half a century 
' — kept it successfully until, as some people have 
' thought, the professors acquired too large a share 
' of power. 

" Is it so certain, moreover, that the lawyer 
' caste, the self-advertising caste, and the financial 
' caste are not all of them a great deal worse, even a 
' great deal more dangerous to peace ? Is a country 
' any more likely to be safe, happy, and prosperous 
' under the regime of a Talking Caste — of windbags 
' resourcefully keeping their bellows full of air, and 
' wheedling the most numerous with transparent 
' falsehoods — than where civil servants of tried 
' wisdom and experience are responsible for carrying 
' on affairs of state, aided at their high task by sober 
' military opinion ? 



GERMAN SELF-KNOWLEDGE 155 

" As for our Kaiser, whom you regard as a crafty part ii. 
1 and ambitious tyrant, he appears in our view as Chapter 

' the incarnation of patriotic duty, burdened though '_ 

' not overwhelmed by care — a lover of peace, so long The devil's 

as peace may be had with honour and safety ; but 
1 if this may not be, then a stern, though reluctant, 
' drawer of the sword. It is true that the Kaiser's 
' government is in many important respects a purely 
' personal government. His is the ultimate responsi- 
1 bility for high policy. He fulfils the function in 
' our system of that strong central power, without 
' which the most ingeniously constructed organisation 
' is but impotence. 

" The German people are ahead of the English 
' and the Americans in self-knowledge ; for they 
' realise that there are many things appertaining 
' to government, which cannot be discussed in the 
1 newspapers, or on the platform, any more than the 
' policy and conduct of a great business can be made 
1 known in advance to the staff, and to trade com- 
' petit ors all over the world. And so, believing the 
' Kaiser's government to be honest, capable, and 
' devoted to the public weal, the German people 
' trust it without reservation to decide when action 
1 shall be taken in a variety of spheres. 

" For the safety and well-being of a nation it is 
' just as necessary that the People should trust the 
' Government, as that the Government should trust 
' the People. And is it not perhaps here that we 
' have the most marked advantage over yourselves ? 

" Our people have undertaken the full burden of 
' citizenship as it is understood among all European 
' nations except the English. They have trained 
' themselves to defend their Fatherland. Having 



156 THE SPIRIT OF GERMAN POLICY 



Part II. 

Chapter 
VI. 

The devil's 
advocate. 



done this they know — and believe me they are happy 
in the knowledge — that they will be cared for by the 
State in sickness, old age, and misfortune. 

" Our Bureaucracy, as you call it, has to its credit 
not only the most efficient war-machine the world 
has ever seen, but an industrial development without 
parallel in the annals of any nation or group of 
nations. And it has achieved even more than this. 
Our time-expired soldiers, and citizens no longer 
liable for military service, have no fear of destitution 
in their declining years. We have no army of idlers 
in the upper class, or of incompetents and degenerates 
in the lower social strata. We do not leave behind 
us in the wake of our industrial progress a vast human 
wreckage. Can your democratic institutions show 
a record as clean as this ? 

" This system of ours which is founded in reason, 
and in experience of modern conditions, and which 
is upheld by the unfaltering confidence of a great 
people, you are wont to condemn as tyrannical and 
reactionary. But can democracy stand against it ? 
— Democracy infirm of purpose, jealous, grudging, 
timid, changeable, unthorough, unready, without 
foresight, obscure in its aims, blundering along in 
an age of lucidity guided only by a faltering and 
confused instinct ! Given anything like an equal 
contest, is it conceivable that such an undis- 
ciplined chaos can prevail against the Hohenzollern 
Empire ? 

" Of late your newspapers have been busily 
complaining of what they call ' German lies,' ' boast- 
fulness,' and ' vulgar abuse.' They have taunted 
our government with not daring to trust the people. 
Our Headquarters bulletins have been vigorously 



TRUST IN THE PEOPLE 157 

' taken to task by the Allies on these and other part ii. 

' grounds. Chapter 

• VT 

" But all nations will acclaim their victories louder '_ 

' than they will trumpet their defeats. This is in Tlie devil ' s 
' human nature. No official communique will ever 
1 be a perfect mirror of truth. It will never give the 
1 whole picture, but only a part ; and by giving only 
1 a part it will often mislead. 

" I read your newspapers, and I read our own. 
' I do not think our journalists, though they do their 
' best, can fairly claim to excel yours in the contest 
1 of boastf ulness and vulgar abuse. And as regards 
' the utterances of responsible public men in our 
' two countries, can you really contend that we 
1 Germans are more open to the reproach of vain- 
' glorious and undignified speech than the British ? 
' Our Kaiser denies having used the words, so often 
' attributed to him in your press, about c General 
' French's contemptible little army,' and in Germany 
1 we believe his denial. But even if he did in fact 
1 utter this expression, is it not quite as seemly and 
1 restrained as references to ' digging rats out of 
' a hole ' — as applied to our gallant navy — or to that 
' later announcement from the same quarter which 
' was recently addressed to the Mayor of Scarborough 
' about ' baby-killers ' 1 Such expressions are re- 
' grettable, no doubt, but not of the first importance. 
1 They are a matter of temperament. An ill-balanced, 
' or even a very highly-strung nature, will be betrayed 
' into blunders of this sort more readily than the 
1 phlegmatic person, or than one whose upbringing 
1 has been in circles where self-control is the rule 
1 of manners. 

" But what puzzles us Germans perhaps more than 



158 THE SPIRIT OF GERMAN POLICY 



Part II. 

Chapter 
VI. 

The devil's 
advocate. 



any of your other charges against us is, when you 
say that our rulers do not trust the people as the 
British Government does. 

" You accuse our War Office of publishing accounts 
of imaginary victories to revive our drooping con- 
fidence, and of concealing actual disasters lest our 
country should fall into a panic of despondency. 
There was surely nothing imaginary about the fall 
of Liege, Namur, Maubeuge, Laon, or La Fere. 
The engagements before Metz, at Mons, Charleroi, 
and Amiens, the battles of Lodz and Lyck, were 
not inconsiderable successes for German arms, 
or at the very least for German generalship. 
The victory of Tannenberg was among the greatest 
in history, reckoning in numbers alone. Our 
government made no secret of the German retire- 
ment — retreat if you prefer the term — from the 
Marne to the Aisne, or of that other falling back 
after the first attempt on Warsaw. Naturally they 
laid less emphasis on reverses than on conquests, 
but what government has ever acted otherwise ? 
Certainly not the French, or the Russian, or your 
own. And what actual disasters have we concealed ? 
In what respect, as regards the conduct of this war, 
have we, the German people, been trusted less than 
yours ? 

" I am especially interested, I confess, as a student 
of British politics, in this matter of ' trusting the 
people.' All your great writers have led me to 
believe that here lies the essential difference between 
your system and ours, and that the great superiority 
of yours to ours is demonstrated in the confidence 
which your statesmen never hesitate to place in 
the wisdom, fortitude, and patriotism of the people. 



THE BRITISH PRESS BUREAU 159 

' Frankly, I do not understand it. Trust must surely p A rt ii. 
' have some esoteric meaning when applied to your chapter 
' populace which foreigners are unable to apprehend. VL 
' I can discover no other sense in your phrase about The devil's 
'' trusting the people,' than that they are trusted afV 
1 not to find out their politicians. It certainly 
' cannot be believed that you trust your people to 
' hear the truth ; for if so why has your government 
' practised so rigorous an economy of this virtue, 
1 doling it out very much as we have lately been doing 
1 with our wheat and potatoes ? 

" Has your government not concealed actual 
' disaster — concealed it from their own people, though 
' from no one else ; for all the world was on the broad 
1 grin ? Everybody knew of your misfortune save 
' a certain large portion of the British public. The 
' motive of your government could not have been 
1 to hide it away from the Germans, or the Austrians, 
' or from neutrals ; for the illustrated papers all 
1 over the globe, even in your own colonies, contained 
' pictures reproduced from photographs of the occur- 
' rence. It was only possible to muzzle the press and 
1 blindfold the people of the United Kingdom, and 
' these things your government did ; acting no doubt 
1 very wisely. 

" Why did your Press Bureau, during the heavy 
1 fighting from the middle of October to the middle of 
' November, persist in maintaining that ' the British 
' are still gaining ground.' The British resistance 
' from the beginning to the end of the four weeks' battle 
' round Ypres is not likely to be forgotten by our 
1 German soldiers, still less to be belittled by them. 
' It was surely a great enough feat of arms to bear the 
' light of truth. But is the same true of the British 



160 THE SPIRIT OF GERMAN POLICY 



Part II. 

Chapter 
VI. 

The devil's 
advocate. 



people ? Can they be trusted to bear the light of 
truth? 

" You cannot wonder if we Germans, and for that 
matter the whole world, have drawn certain con- 
clusions from these and other incidents. We do 
not doubt that your ministers have acted wisely 
in suppressing bad tidings ; but why should they 
have taken all those pains and endured the derision, 
while incurring the distrust, of foreign countries — 
a material injury, mind you, and not merely a 
sentimental one — unless they had known, only too 
well, that publication of this or that piece of news 
would have too painfully affected the nerves of your 
people ? Concealment of checks, reverses, and 
disasters which had not already become known 
to the Austrians and ourselves might have served 
a useful military purpose ; but what purpose 
except that of a sedative for British public 
opinion could be served by the concealment of 
such matters when we, your enemies, knew them 
already ? 

" Shortly before Christmas one of your legal 
ministers, who, I understand, is specially responsible 
for looking after the Press Bureau, explained to the 
House of Commons the principles by which he had 
been guided in the suppression of news and comment. 
He should refuse, he said, to publish any criticism 
which might tend to disturb popular confidence in 
the Government, or which might cause the people 
of England to think that their affairs were in a 
really serious state. On practical grounds there is 
no doubt something to be said for such a policy ; 
but (will you tell me ?) has any autocratic 
government ever laid down a more drastic rule 



BRITISH PATRIOTISM 161 

for blindfolding the people in order to preserve its Part ii. 

Own existence ? * Chapter 

" Your Prime Minister, speaking in the early _^_ 
autumn, thus adjured the men of Wales : — ' Be The devil ' s 
' worthy of those who went before you, and leave to 
1 your children the richest of all inheritances, the 
' memory of fathers who, in a great cause, put self- 
1 sacrifice before ease, and honour above life itself.' 
These are noble words, of Periclean grandeur. 
But have they met with a general response ? Are 
these sentiments prevalent outside government 
circles, among those — the bulk of your people — 
who do not come under the direct influence of minis- 
terial inspiration and example ? If so, why then 
have your rulers not screwed up their courage 
to call for National Service ? Why do they still 
continue to depend for their recruits upon sensa- 
tional advertisements, newspaper puffs, oratorical 
entreaties, and private influence of a singularly 
irregular sort ? 

" Is not this the reason ? — Your government is 
afraid — even in this great struggle, where (as they 
put it) your future existence as a nation is at stake — 
that the English people — or at any rate so large a 
proportion of them, as if rendered uncomfortable 
could create a political disturbance — is not even 

1 The basis of this extraordinary charge seems to be the following 
passage from a speech by Sir Stanley Buckmaster, the Solicitor-General 
and Chairman of the Press Bureau on November 12, 1914. It is distressing 
to see how far national prejudice is apt to mislead a hostile critic like 
the Freiherr von Hexenkiichen : " Criticism of the Government, or of 
' members of the Government, is not that which I have ever stopped, 
' except when such criticism is of such a character that it might destroy 
' public confidence in the Government, which at this moment is charged 
' with the conduct of the war, or might in any way weaken the confidence 
' of the people in the administration of affairs, or otherwise cause distress 
' or disturbance amongst people in thinking their affairs were in a really 
' serious state." 

M 



162 THE SPIRIT OF GERMAN POLICY 



Part II. 

Chapter 
VI. 

The devil's 
advocate. 



yet prepared to make the necessary sacrifices. 
And so, to the amazement of us Germans, you 
let the older men, with families dependent on 
them, go forth to the war, urged on by a high 
sense of duty, while hundreds of thousands of 
young unmarried men are still allowed to stay at 
home. 

" You are still, it would appear, enamoured of 
your voluntary system. You have not yet abandoned 
your belief that it is the duty of the man, who 
possesses a sense of duty, to protect the skin, family, 
and property of the man who does not. To us 
this seems a topsy-turvy creed, and not more 
topsy-turvy than contemptible. In Germany and 
France — where for generations past the doctrine of 
private sacrifice for the public weal is ingrained, 
and has been approved in principle and applied in 
practice with unfaltering devotion — a ' voluntary ' 
system might conceivably have some chance of pro- 
viding such an army as you are in search of. But 
to the United Kingdom surely ib is singularly in- 
applicable ? Let me illustrate my meaning by a 
comparison. 

" Our Kaiser in his New Year's message — which 
in Germany we all read with enthusiasm, and con- 
sidered very Doble and appropriate — summed up the 
military situation by saying tbat after five months' 
hard and hot fighting the war was still being 
waged almost everywhere off German soil, and on 
the enemies' territories. And he summed up the 
domestic situation by saying (and this, believe me, 
is true) that our nation stands in unexampled 
harmony, prepared to sacrifice its heart's blood for 
the defence of the Fatherland. Another three 



COMPARISON OF RECRUITING 163 

months have passed away, and these statements Part ii. 

Still hold good. Chapter 

" The point to which I chiefly wish to call your ' 
attention is one of numbers, and I will take my The devil's 
estimates of numbers from your own most famous 
newspaper experts. 

" Your claim, as I understand it, is that on New 
Year's Day 1915 you had — exclusive of Indian troops 
and Dominion contingents — between 2,000,000 and 
2,500,000 men training and in the field. 

" Germany alone (here again I quote your English 
experts), without reckoning Austria, has actually 
put into the field during the past five months 
5,000,000 men. Of these it is stated by your news- 
papers that she has lost in round figures 1,500,000, 
who have either been killed, or taken prisoners, 
or are too severely wounded to return as yet to 
the fighting fine. But in spite of this depletion, 
your military statisticians tell us that Germany 
and her ally, at New Year's Day, still outnumbered 
the Allies on both the Eastern and the Western 
frontier. 

" The same high authorities tell us further, that 
during this period of five months, the German 
Government has called upon the civil population, 
has appealed to able-bodied men who had previously 
been exempt from military service, and that by 
this means it has obtained, and has been engaged in 
training, arming, and equipping another 4,000,000 
or 4,500,000 who, it is anticipated, will become 
available for war purposes in new formations, during 
the spring and summer of the present year. 

" Our Government, therefore, according to your 
own account, has not been afraid to ask the civil 



164 THE SPIRIT OF GERMAN POLICY 



Part II. 

Chapter 
VI. 

The devil's 
advocate. 



population to serve, and this is the response. Does 
it look as if the national spirit had been quenched 
under our autocratic system ? 

" Out of our whole population of sixty-five millions 
we have apparently raised for military service on 
land and naval service at sea, between 9,000,000 and 
11,000,000 men since this war began. Out of your 
whole population of forty-five millions you have 
succeeded in raising for these same purposes only 
something between 2,000,000 and 2,500,000 men. 
And in your case, be it observed, in order to attract 
recruits, you have offered good wages and munificent 
separation allowances, while in our case men serve 
without pay. 

" This numerical comparison is worth carrying a 
stage further. Germany and her ally have between 
them a total population of 115,000,000. The United 
Kingdom (including the people of European stock 
who inhabit the various Dominions), France, Russia, 
Belgium, Servia, and Montenegro number in round 
figures about 280,000,000. Roughly speaking, these 
are odds of seven to three against us. And I am 
leaving out of account all the non-European races — 
the Turks on the one side, the Japanese and the 
Indians on the other. If these were included the 
odds would be much heavier. 

" And yet our Kaiser spoke but the simple 
truth, when he told us on New Year's Day that, 
after five months of war, the German armies were 
almost everywhere on the territories of their enemies. 
We are not only keeping you back and defying 
all your efforts to invade us ; but like the infant 
Hercules, we have gripped you by your throats, and 
were holding you out at arm's length ! 



METHODS OF RECRUITING 165 

" I do not of course pretend to look at this matter Part ii. 
except from the German standpoint ; but is there Chapter 

any flaw in my reasoning, is there anything at all 

unfair, if I thus sum up my conclusions ? — By The devil ' s 

*■ J p-i advocate. 

Midsummer next — after stupendous efforts of the 
oratorical and journalistic kind — after an enormous 
amount of shouting, music-hall singing, cinema films, 
and showy advertising of every description — after 
making great play with the name and features of a 
popular field-marshal, in a manner which must have 
shocked both his natural modesty and soldierly 
pride — after all this you expect, or say you expect, 
that you will possess between two and two-and-a-half 
millions of men trained, armed, equipped, and ready 
to take the field. 

" As against this, during the same period, and 
out of the less military half of our male population, 
without any shouting or advertising to speak of, 
we shall have provided approximately double that 
number. We have raised these new forces quietly, 
without any fuss, and without a word of protest 
from any of our people. We are training them 
without any serious difficulty. We are arming 
them, equipping them, clothing them, and housing 
them without any difficulty at all. 

" To conclude this interesting contrast, may I 
ask you—is it true, as the French newspapers allege, 
that you are about to invite, or have already invited., 
your Japanese Allies to send some portion of their 
Army to European battlefields ? With what face 
can you make this appeal when you have not yet 
called upon your own people to do, what every other 
people engaged in the present struggle, has already 
done ? 



166 THE SPIRIT OF GERMAN POLICY 

Part ii. " After you have pondered upon this strange and 

Chapter ' startling contrast, will you still hold to the opinion 

1 ' that the German system — which you have affected 

The devil's ' to despise, on the ground that it does not rest upon 

advocate. x ° . x . 

what you are pleased to term a popular basis — is 
' at any point inferior to your own in its hold upon 
' the hearts of the people ? 

What is meant by the phrase — ' a popular 
' basis ' ? Is it something different from the support 
' of the people, the will of the people, the devotion 
' of the people ? And if it is different, is it better — 
' judging, that is, by its results in times of trouble — 
' or is it worse % " 

So the cultured Freiherr, watching democracy at 
work in Britain, its ancient home, concludes with 
this question — " Is this timid, jealous, and distracted 
' thing possessed of any real faith in itself ; and if so, 
' will it fight for its faith to the bitter end ? Is the 
' British system one which even the utmost faith in it 
' can succeed in propping up % Does it possess any 
' inherent strength ; or is it merely a thing of paste- 
' board and make-believe, fore-ordained to perish ? " 



CHAPTER VII 

THE CONFLICT OF SYSTEMS AND IDEAS 

The Freiherr's discourse raises a large number of part ii. 
questions, some of them unarguable. Others again Chapter 

are too much so ; for if once started upon, argument 1 

with regard to them need never end. Some of his Thecon- 
contentions have already been dealt with in previous systems 
chapters ; some on the other hand, such as the an 
British methods of recruiting, will be considered 
later on. It must, however, be admitted that his 
taunts and criticisms do not all rebound with blunted 
points from our shield of self-complacency ; some, if 
only a few, get home and rankle. 

We are challenged to contrast our faith in our 
own political institutions with that of the Germans 
in theirs ; also to measure the intrinsic strength of 
that form of political organisation called ' democracy ' 
against that other form which is known as ' autocracy/ 

The German state is the most highly developed 
and efficient type of personal monarchy at present 
known to the world. Its triumphs in certain 
directions have been apparent from the beginning. 
It would be sheer waste of time to dispute the fact 
that Germany was incomparably better prepared, 
organised, and educated for this war — the purpose 
of which was the spoliation of her neighbours — 

167 



168 THE SPIEIT OF GEEMAN POLICY 

Part ii. than any of her neighbours were for offering resist- 

Chapter ance. 

; But what the Freiherr does not touch upon at all 

The con- i s the conflict between certain underlying ideas of 

flict of . , _ . ... J ° _> 

systems right and wrong — old ideas, which are held by Kussia, 
i eas. jY ance ^ an( j ourselves, and which now find themselves 
confronted by new and strange ideas which have been 
exceedingly prevalent among the governing classes 
in Germany for many years past. He does not 
raise this issue, any more than his fellow-countrymen 
now raise it either in America or at home. It is 
true that there was a flamboyant outburst from a 
few faithful Treitschkians and Nietzschians, both in 
prose and poetry, during those weeks of August and 
September which teemed with German successes ; 
but their voices soon sank below audibility — possibly 
by order verboten — in a swiftly dying fall. We, 
however, cannot agree to let this aspect of the matter 
drop, merely because patriotic Germans happen to 
have concluded that the present time is inopportune 
for the discussion of it. 

There are two clear and separate issues. From 
the point of view of posterity the more important 
of these, perhaps, may prove to be this conflict in 
the region of moral ideas. From the point of view 
of the present generation, however, the chief matter 
of practical interest is the result of a struggle for the 
preservation of our own institutions, against the 
aggression of a race which has not yet learned the 
last and hardest lesson of civilisation — how to live 
and let live. 

The present war may result in the bankruptcy 
of the Habsburg and Hohenzollern dynasties. It 
is very desirable, however, to make clear the fact 



DEMOCRACY 169 

that the alternative is the bankruptcy of ' demo- part il 
cracy.' Our institutions are now being subjected to Chapter 

a severer strain than they have ever yet experienced. '_ 

Popular government is standing its trial. It will be The con- 
judged by the result ; and no one can say that this is systems 
an unfair test to apply to human institutions. 

No nation, unless it be utterly mad, will retain 
a form of government which from some inherent 
defect is unable to protect itself against external 
attack. Is democratic government capable of looking 
ahead, making adequate and timely preparation, 
calling for and obtaining from its people the sacrifices 
which are necessary in order to preserve their own 
existence ? Can it recover ground which has been lost, 
and maintain a long, costly, and arduous struggle, 
until, by victory, it has placed national security 
beyond the reach of danger ? 

Defeat in the present war would shake popular 
institutions to their foundations in England as well 
as France ; possibly also in regions which are more 
remote than either of these. But something far short 
of defeat — anything indeed in the nature of a drawn 
game or stalemate — would assuredly bring the credit 
of democracy so low that it would be driven to make 
a composition with its creditors. 

Words, like other currencies, have a way of 
changing their values as the world grows older. 
Until comparatively recent times ' democracy ' was 
a term of contempt, as ' demagogue ' still is to-day. 

The founders of American Union abhorred ' De- 
mocracy,' x and took every precaution which occurred 
to them in order to ward it off. Their aim was 

1 Washington, Hamilton, Madison, Jay. 



170 THE SPIRIT OF GERMAN POLICY 

Paet ii. ' Popular,' or ' Representative Government ' — a thing 
Chaptbk which they conceived to lie almost at the opposite 
• pole. Their ideal was a state, the citizens of which 
The con- chose their leaders at stated intervals, and trusted 
systems them. Democracy, as it appeared in their eyes, was a 
and ideas. p ]^i ca l chaos where the people chose its servants, 
and expected from them only servility. There was 
an ever-present danger, calling for stringent safe- 
guards, that the first, which they esteemed the best 
of all constitutional arrangements, would degenerate 
into the second, which they judged to be the worst. 

Until times not so very remote it was only the 
enemies of Representative Government, or its most 
cringing flatterers, who spoke of it by the title of 
Democracy. Gradually, however, in the looseness of 
popular discussions, the sharpness of the original 
distinction wore off, so that the ideal system and its 
opposite — the good and the evil — are now confounded 
together under one name. There is no use fighting 
against current terminology ; but it is well to bear 
in mind that terminology has no power to alter facts, 
and that the difference between the two principles 
still remains as wide as it was at the beginning. 

When a people becomes so self-complacent that 
it mistakes its own ignorance for omniscience — so 
jealous of authority and impatient of contradiction 
that it refuses to invest with more than a mere shadow 
of power those whose business it is to govern — when 
the stock of leadership gives out, or remains hidden 
and undiscovered under a fitter of showy refuse — when 
those who succeed in pushing themselves to the 
front are chiefly concerned not to lead, but merely 
to act the parts of leaders ' in silver slippers and 
amid applause' — when the chiefs of parties are 



DANGERS OF SELF-CRITICISM 171 

so fearful of unpopularity that they will not assert Part il 
their own opinions, or utter timely warnings, or pro- Chapter 

claim what they know to be the truth — when such '_ 

things as these come to pass the nation has reached ^e con- 
that state which was dreaded by the framers of systems 
the American Constitution, and which — intending ai 
to warn mankind against it — they branded as 
' Democracy.' 

Self-criticism makes for health in a people ; but 
it may be overdone. If it purges the national spirit 
it is good ; but if it should lead to pessimism, or to 
some impatient breach with tradition, it is one of 
the worst evils. One is conscious of a somewhat 
dangerous tendency in certain quarters at the present 
time to assume the worst with regard to the working 
of our own institutions. 

Critics of this school have pointed out (what is 
undoubtedly true) that Germany has been far ahead 
of us in her preparations. Every month since war 
began has furnished fresh evidence of the far-sighted- 
ness, resourcefulness, thoroughness, and efficiency of 
all her military arrangements. Her commercial and 
financial resources have also been husbanded, and 
organised in a manner which excites our unwilling 
admiration. And what perhaps has been the rudest 
shock of all, is the apparent unity and devotion of 
the whole German people, in support of a war which, 
without exaggeration, may be said to have cast the 
shadow of death on every German home. 

These critics further insist that our own nation has 
not shown itself more loyal, and that it did not rouse 
itself to the emergency with anything approaching 
the same swiftness. Timidity and a wilful self- 



172 THE SPIRIT OF GERMAN POLICY 

pabtii. deception, they say, have marked our policy for 

Chapter years before this war broke out. They marked it 

1 again when the crisis came upon us. Have they not 

The con- marked it ever since war began ? And who can 

flict of & . 

systems nave confidence that they will not continue to mark 
it until the end, whatever the end may be ? 

The conclusion therefore at which our more de- 
spondent spirits have arrived, is that the representa- 
tive system has already failed us — that it has suffered 
that very degradation which liberal minds of the 
eighteenth century feared so much. How can demo- 
cracy in the bad sense — democracy which has become 
decadent — which is concerned mainly with its rights 
instead of with its duties — with its comforts more than 
with the sacrifices which are essential to its own pre- 
servation — how can such a system make head against 
an efficient monarchy sustained by the enthusiastic 
devotion of a vigorous and intelligent people ? 

It does not seem altogether wise to despair of 
one's own institutions at the first check. Even 
democracy, in the best sense, is not a flawless thing. 
Of all forms of government it is the most delicate, 
more dependent than any other upon the supply of 
leaders. There are times of dearth when the crop 
of leadership is a short one. Nor are popular in- 
stitutions, any more than our own vile bodies, 
exempt from disease. Disease, however, is not neces- 
sarily fatal. The patient may recover, and in the 
bracing air of a national crisis, such as the present, 
conditions are favourable for a cure. 

And, after all, we may remind these critics that 
in 1792 democracy did in fact make head pretty suc- 
cessfully against monarchy. Though it was miserably 
unprovided, untrained, inferior to its enemies in every- 



IRRECONCILABLE OPPOSITIONS 173 

thing save spirit and leadership, the states of Europe pabt ii. 
nevertheless — all but England — went down before it, Chapter 

• • VII 

in the years which followed, like a row of ninepins. 1 

Then as now, England, guarded by seas and sea- Tiiecon- 

' & . ' & J . . flict of 

power, had a breathing-space allowed her, in which to systems 
adjust the spirit of her people to the new conditions. 
That Germany will not conquer us with her arms 
we may well feel confident. But unless we conquer 
her with our arms — and this is a much longer step 
— there is a considerable danger that she may yet 
conquer us with her ideas. In that case the world 
will be thrown back several hundred years ; and the 
blame for this disaster, should it occur, will be laid — 
and laid rightly — at the door of Democracy, because 
it vaunted a system which it had neither the fortitude 
nor the strength to uphold. 

When we pass from the conflict between systems 
of government, and come to the other conflict of 
ideas as to right and wrong, we find ourselves faced 
with an antagonism which is wholly incapable of 
accommodation. In this war the stakes are some- 
thing more than any of the material interests in- 
volved. It is a conflict where one faith is pitted 
against another. No casuistry will reconcile the ideal 
which inspires English policy with the ideal which 
inspires German policy. There is no sense — nothing 
indeed but danger — in arguing round the circle to 
prove that the rulers of these two nations are victims 
of some frightful misunderstanding, and that really at 
the bottom of their hearts they believe the same 
things. This is entirely untrue ; they believe quite 
different things ; things indeed which are as nearly 
as possible opposites. 



174 THE SPIRIT OF GERMAN POLICY 

PabtH. Our own belief is old, ingrained, and universal. 
Chapter It is accepted equally by the people and their rulers. 
VIL We have held it so long that the articles of our creed 
The con- have become somewhat blurred in outline — over- 
systems grown, like a memorial tablet, by moss and lichen, 
and ideas. j n ^ cage | our enem y the tablet is new and the 

inscription sharp. He who runs may read it in bold 
clear-cut lettering. But the belief of the German 
people in the doctrine which has been carved upon 
the stone is not yet universal, or anything like 
universal. It is not even general. It is fully under- 
stood and accepted only in certain strata of society ; 
but it is responsible, without a doubt, for the making 
in cold blood of the policy which has led to this war. 
When the hour struck which the German rulers 
deemed favourable for conquest, war, according to 
their creed, became the duty as well as the interest 
of the Fatherland. 

But so soon as war had been declared, the German 
people were allowed and even encouraged to believe 
that the making of war from motives of self-interest 
was a crime against humanity — the Sin against the 
Holy Ghost. They were allowed and encouraged 
to believe that the Allies were guilty of this crime and 
sin. And not only this, but war itself, which had 
been hymned in so many professorial rhapsodies, 
as a noble and splendid restorer of vigour and virtue, 
was now execrated with wailing and gnashing of 
teeth, as the most hideous of all human calamities. 

It is clear from all this that the greater part of 
the German people regarded war in exactly the same 
light as the whole of the English people did. In 
itself it was a curse ; and the man who deliberately 
contrived it for his own ends, or even for those of his 



APOSTASY OF THE PRIESTHOOD 175 

country, was a criminal. The German people applied Part ii. 
the same tests as we did, and it is not possible to doubt Chapter 
that in so doing they were perfectly sincere. They 
acted upon instinct. They had not learned the later The coq - 
doctrines of the pedantocracy, or how to steer by systems 
a new magnetic pole. They still held by the old andideas " 
Christian rules as to duties which exist between neigh- 
bours. To their simple old-fashioned loyalty what 
their Kaiser said must be the truth. And what their 
Kaiser said was that the Fatherland was attacked 
by treacherous foes. That was enough to banish 
all doubts. For the common people that was the 
reality and the only reality. Phrases about world- 
power and will-to-power — supposing they had ever 
heard or noticed them — were only mouthfuls of 
strange words, such as preachers of all kinds love to 
chew in the intervals of their discourses. 

When the priests and prophets found themselves 
at last confronted by those very horrors which they 
had so often invoked, did their new-found faith 
desert them, or was it only that their tongues, for 
some reason, refused to speak the old jargon ? 
Judging by their high-flown indignation against the 
Allies it would rather seem as if, in the day of wrath, 
they had hastily abandoned sophistication for the 
pious memories of their unlettered childhood. Their 
apostasy was too well done to have been hypocrisy. 

With the rulers it was different. They knew 
clearly enough what they had done, what they were 
doing, and what they meant to do. When they 
remained sympathetically silent, amid the popular 
babble about the horrors of war and iniquity of 
peace-breakers, their tongues were not paralysed by 
remorse — they were merely in their cheeks. Their 



176 THE SPIRIT OF GERMAN POLICY 

Part ii. sole concern was to humour public opinion, the 
Chapter results of whose disapproval they feared, quite as 

YIL much as they despised its judgment. 
The con- That war draws out and gives scope to some of 

systems the noblest human qualities, which in peace-time are 
and ideas. ^ tQ ^ ^den out of sight, no one will deny. That 
it is a great getter-rid of words and phrases, which 
have no real meaning behind them — that it is a great 
winnower of true men from shams, of staunch men 
from boasters and blowers of their own trumpets — 
that it is a great binder-together of classes, a great 
purifier of the hearts of nations, there is no need 
to dispute. Occasionally, though very rarely, it 
has proved itself to be a great destroyer of mis- 
understanding between the combatants themselves. 

But although the whole of this is true, it does 
not lighten the guilt of the deliberate peace-breaker. 
Many of the same benefits, though in a lesser degree, 
arise out of a pestilence, a famine, or any other great 
national calamity ; and it is the acknowledged duty 
of man to strive to the uttermost against these and 
to ward them off with all his strength. It is the same 
with war. To argue, as German intellectuals have 
done of late, that in order to expand their territories 
they were justified in scattering infection and deliber- 
ately inviting this plague, that the plague itself was 
a thing greatly for the advantage of the moral sanita- 
tion of the world — all this is merely the casuistry of 
a priesthood whom the vanity of rubbing elbows 
with men of action has beguiled of their salvation. 

Somewhere in one of his essays Emerson introduces 
an interlocutor whom he salutes as ' little Sir.' One 
feels tempted to personify the whole corporation of 
German pedants under the same title. When they 



THE ARROGANCE OF PEDANTS 177 

talk so vehemently and pompously about the duty part ii. \ 
of deliberate war-making for the expansion of the Chapter 
Fatherland, for the fulfilment of the theory of evolu- 
tion, even for the glory of God on high, our minds The con- 
are filled with wonder and a kind of pity. systems 

Have they ever seen war except in their dreams, and ldeas ' 
or a countryside in devastation ? Have they ever 
looked with their own eyes on shattered limbs, or 
faces defaced, of which cases, and the like, there are 
already some hundreds of thousands in the hospitals 
of Europe, and may be some millions before this war 
is ended ? Have they ever reckoned — except in 
columns of numerals without human meaning — how 
many more hundreds of thousands, in the flower of 
their age, have died and will die, or — more to be pitied 
— will linger on maimed and impotent when the war 
is ended ? Have they realised any of these things, 
except in diagrams, and curves, and statistical tables, 
dealing with the matter — as they would say them- 
selves, in their own dull and dry fashion — ' under 
its broader aspects ' — in terms, that is, of population, 
food-supply, and economic output ? 

Death, and suffering of many sorts occur in all 
wars — even in the most humane war. And this is 
not a humane war which the pedants have let loose 
upon us. Indeed, they have taught with some 
emphasis that humanity, under such conditions, is 
altogether a mistake. 

" Sentimentality ! " cries the ' little Sir ' im- 
patiently, " sickly sentimentality ! In a world of 
' men such things must be. God has ordained war." 

Possibly. But what one feels is that the making 
of war is the Lord's own business and not the ' little 
Sir's.' It is the Lord's, as vengeance is, and earth- 

N 



178 THE SPIRIT OF GERMAN POLICY 



Pabt II. 



quakes, floods, and droughts ; not an office to be 
Chapter undertaken by mortals. 

VTT • 

'_ The ' little Sir,' however, has devised a new order 

The con- f or the world, and apparently he will never rest 

systems satisfied until Heaven itself conforms to his initiative. 

ideas. jj e - g aU( j ac i 0USj f or }ik e the Titans he has challenged 

Zeus. But at times we are inclined to wonder — is he 
not perhaps trying too much ? Is he not in fact 
engaged in an attempt to outflank Providence, whose 
pivot is infinity ? And for this he is relying solely 
upon the resources of his own active little finite mind. 
He presses his attack most gallantly against human 
nature — back and forwards, up and down — but 
opposing all his efforts is there not a screen of 
adamantine crystal which cannot be pierced, of 
interminable superficies which cannot be circum- 
vented ? Is he not in some ways like a wasp, which 
beats itself angrily against a pane of glass ? 



PART III 
THE SPIRIT OF BRITISH POLICY 



i saw then in my dream that he went on thus, even until he 
came at a bottom, where he saw, a little out of the way, three men 
fast asleep with fetters upon their heels. 

The name of the one was Simple, another Sloth, and the third 
Presumption. 

Christian then seeing them lie in this case, went to them, if 
peradventure he might awake them. and cried, yott are like them 
that sleep on the top of a mast, for the dead sea is under you, a 
Gulf that hath no bottom. Awake therefore and come away ; be 

WILLING ALSO, AND I WILL HELP YOU OFF WITH YOUR IRONS. He ALSO 
TOLD THEM, If HE THAT GOETH ABOUT LIKE A ROARING LlON COMES BY, 

you will certainly become a prey to his teeth. 

With that they lookt upon him, and began to reply in this 
sort : Simple said, I see no danger ; Sloth said, Yet a little more 
sleep ; and Presumption said, Every Vat must stand upon his own 
bottom. And so they lay down to sleep again, and Christian went 
on his way. 

The Pilgrim's Progress. 



CHAPTER I 

A REVOLUTIONARY PERIOD 
{January 1901-July 1914) 

It is not true to say that this is a war between Part hi. 
the rival principles of democracy and autocracy. A Chapter 
too great absorption in our own particular sector of _^_ 
the situation has led certain writers to put forward, Arevoiu- 
as a general explanation, this formula which is not P SZ 
only inadequate, but misleading. The real issue is 
something wider and deeper than a struggle between 
forms of government. It is concerned with the 
groundwork of human beliefs. 

And yet it is unquestionably true to say, that by 
reason of Germany's procedure, this war is being 
waged against democracy — not perhaps by intention, 
but certainly in effect. For if the Allies should be 
defeated, or even if they should fail to conquer their 
present enemies, the result must necessarily be 
wounding to the credit of popular institutions all 
the world over, fatal to their existence in Europe at 
any rate, fatal conceivably at no long distance of 
time to their existence elsewhere than in Europe. 
For mankind, we may be sure, is not going to put 
up with any kind of government merely because it 
is ideally beautiful. No system will be tolerated 

181 



182 THE SPIRIT OF BRITISH POLICY 

part iii. indefinitely which does not enable the people who live 

Chapter under it to protect themselves from their enemies. 

L The instinct of self-preservation will drive them to 

Arevoiu- seek for some other political arrangement which is 

period competent, in the present imperfect condition of the 

world, to provide the first essential of a state, which 

is Security. 

But although the whole fabric of democracy is 
threatened by this war, the principle of autocracy is 
not challenged by it either directly or indirectly. 
France and England are not fighting against personal 
monarchy any more than Russia is fighting against 
popular government. So far as the forms of con- 
stitutions are concerned each of the Allies would be 
well content to live and let live. They are none of 
them spurred on by propagandist illusions like the 
armies of the First Republic. Among Russians, 
devotion to their own institutions, and attachment 
to the person of their Emperor are inspired not merely 
by dictates of political expediency and patriotism, 
but also by their sense of religious duty. 1 It is 
inconceivable that the national spirit of Russia could 
ever have been roused to universal enthusiasm merely 
in order to fight the battles of democracy. And yet 
Russia is now ranged side by side with the French 
Republic and the British Commonwealth in perfect 
unison. What has induced her to submit to sacrifices 
—less indeed than those of Belgium, but equal to 
those of France, and much greater so far than our 
own — unless some issue was at stake wider and deeper 
even than the future of popular government ? 

The instincts of a people are vague and obscure. 
The reasons which are put forward, the motives 

1 Of. ' Russia and her Ideals,' Round Table, December 1914. 



GERMAN MATERIALISM 183 

which appear upon the surface, the provocations Part hi. 
which lead to action, the immediate ends which are Chapter 

sought after and pursued, rarely explain the true _ 

causes or proportions of any great national struggle. Arevoiu- 
But for all that, the main issue, as a rule, is realised period. 
by the masses who are engaged, although it is not 
realised through the medium of coherent argument 
or articulate speech. 

The present war is a fight, not between democracy 
and autocracy, but between the modern spirit of 
Germany and the unchanging spirit of civilisation. 
And it is well to bear in mind that the second of these 
is not invincible. It has suffered defeat before now, 
at various epochs in the world's history, when attacked 
by the same forces which assail it to-day. Barbarism 
is not any the less barbarism because it employs 
weapons of precision, because it avails itself of the 
discoveries of science and the mechanism of finance, 
or because it thinks it worth while to hire bands of 
learned men to shriek paeans in its praise and 
invectives against its victims. Barbarism is not 
any the less barbarism because its methods are 
up to date. It is known for what it is by the ends 
which it pursues and the spirit in which it pursues 
them. 

The modern spirit of Germany is materialism in 
its crudest form — the undistracted pursuit of wealth, 
and of power as a means to wealth. It is material- 
ism, rampant and self-confident, fostered by the 
state — subsidised, regulated, and, where thought 
advisable, controlled by the state — supported every- 
where by the diplomatic resources of the state — 
backed in the last resort by the fleets and armies of 
the state. It is the most highly organised machine, 



184 THE SPIRIT OF BRITISH POLICY 

Part hi. the most deliberate and thorough-going system, for 
Chapter arriving at material ends which has ever yet been 
L devised by man. It is far more efficient, but not a 
a revoiu- whit less material, than ' Manchesterism ' of the 
period. Victorian era, which placed its hopes in ' free ' com- 
petition, and also than that later development of 
trusts and syndicates — hailing from America — which 
aims at levying tribute on society by means of 
' voluntary ' co-operation. And just as the English 
professors, who fell prostrate in adoration before the 
prosperity of cotton-spinners, found no difficulty in 
placing self-interest upon the loftiest pedestal of 
morality, so German professors have succeeded in 
erecting for the joint worship of the Golden Calf and 
the War-god Wotun, high twin altars which look 
down with pity and contempt upon the humbler 
shrines of the Christian faith. 

The morality made in Manchester has long ago 
lost its reputation. That which has been made in 
Germany more recently must in the end follow suit ; 
for, like its predecessor, it is founded upon a false 
conception of human nature and cannot endure. 
But in the interval, if it be allowed to triumph, it 
may work evil, in comparison with which that done 
by our own devil -take -the -hindmost philosophers 
sinks into insignificance. 

Looking at the present war from the standpoint 
of the Allies, the object of it is to repel the encroach- 
ments of materialism, working its way through the 
ruin of ideas, which have been cherished always, save 
in the dark ages when civilisation was overwhelmed 
by barbarism. Looking at the matter from our own 
particular standpoint, it is also incidentally a struggle 
for the existence of democracy. The chief question 



WANT OF A NATIONAL POLICY 185 

we have to ask ourselves is whether our people will part hi. 
fight for their faith and traditions with the same Chapter 

skill and courage as the Germans for their material 1 

ends. Will they endure sacrifices with the same £ revolu - 

. . , tionary 

fortitude as France and Russia ? Will they face the period. 
inevitable eagerly and promptly, or will they play 
the laggard and by delay ruin all — themselves most 
of all ? . . . This war is not going to be won for us 
by other people, or by some miraculous intervention 
of Providence, or by the Germans running short of 
copper, or by revolutions in Berlin, nor even by the 
break-up of the Austrian Empire. In order to win it 
we shall have to put out our full strength, to organise 
our resources in men and material as we have never 
done before during the whole of our history. We 
have not accomplished these things as yet, although 
we have expressed our determination, and are indeed 
willing to attempt them. We were taken by surprise, 
and the immediate result has been a great confusion, 
very hard to disentangle. 

Considering how little, before war began, our 
people had been taken into the confidence of suc- 
cessive governments, as to the relations of the British 
Empire with the outside world ; how little education 
of opinion there had been, as to risks, and dangers, 
and means of defence ; how little leading and clear 
guidance, both before and since, as to duties — con- 
sidering all these omissions one can only marvel that 
the popular response has been what it is, and that 
the confusion was not many times worse. 

What was the mood of the British race when this 
war broke upon them so unexpectedly ? To what 
extent were they provided against it in a material 
sense ? And still more important, how far were 



186 THE SPIRIT OF BRITISH POLICY 

part iii. their minds and hearts prepared to encounter it ? 

Chapter It is important to understand those things, but in 

1 order to do this it is necessary to look back over a 

A revohi- f ew y ears . 
tionary ^ 

period. 

By a coincidence which may prove convenient to 
historians, the end of the nineteenth century marked 
the beginning of a new epoch l — an interlude, of brief 
duration as it proved — upon which the curtain was 
rung down shortly before midnight on the 4th of 
August 1914. 

Between these two dates, in a space of something 
over thirteen years, events had happened in a quick 
succession, both within the empire and abroad, 
which disturbed or dissolved many ancient under- 
standings. The spirit of change had been busy with 
mankind, and needs unknown to a former generation 
had grown clamorous. Objects of hope had presented 
themselves, driving old ideas to the wall, and un- 
foreseen dangers had produced fresh groupings, 
compacts, and associations between states, and 
parties, and individual men. 

In Europe during this period the manifest 
determination of Germany to challenge the naval 
supremacy of Britain, by the creation of a fleet 
designed and projected as the counterpart of her 
overwhelming army, had threatened the security of 
the whole continent, and had put France, Russia, and 
England upon terms not far removed from those of an 
alliance. The gravity of this emergency had induced 
our politicians to exclude, for the time being, this 
department of public affairs from the bitterness 
of their party struggles ; and it had also drawn 

1 Queen Victoria died on January 22, 1901. 



DEVELOPMENTS IN THE EAST 187 

the governments of the United Kingdom and the Part hi. 
Dominions into relations closer than ever before, for Chapter 
the purpose of mutual defence. 1 _L 

In the meanwhile there had been developments ^ revolu - 

■L tiouary 

even more startling in the hitherto unchanging East, period. 
Japan, as the result of a great war, 2 had become a 
first-class power, redoubtable both by sea and land. 
China, the most populous, the most ancient, and the 
most conservative of despotisms, had suddenly sought 
her salvation under the milder institutions of a 
republic. 3 

The South African war, ended by the Peace of 
Pretoria, had paved the way for South African Union. 4 
The achievement of this endeavour had been ap- 
plauded by men of all parties ; some finding in it a 
welcome confirmation of their theories with regard 
to liberty and self-government ; others again drawing 
from it encouragement to a still bolder undertaking. 
For if South Africa had made a precedent, the existing 
state of the world had supplied a motive, for the 
closer union of the empire. 

Within the narrower limits of the United Kingdom 
changes had also occurred within this period which, 
from another point of view, were equally momentous. 
In 1903 Mr. Chamberlain had poured new wine into 
old bottles, and in so doing had hastened the in- 
evitable end of Unionist predominance by changing 
on a sudden the direction of party policy. In the 
unparalleled defeat which ensued two and a half 
years later the Labour party appeared for the first 
time, formidable both in numbers and ideas. 

A revolution had likewise been proceeding in 

1 Imperial Conference on Defence, summer of 1909. 
2 1904-1905. 3 1911. * May 1902. 



188 THE SPIRIT OF BRITISH POLICY 

Part hi. our institutions as well as in the minds of our people. 

Chapter The balance of the state had been shifted by a cur- 
L tailment of the powers of the House of Lords * — the 

Arevoiu- first change which had been made by statute in the 

period. fundamental principle of the Constitution since the 
passing of the Act of Settlement. 2 In July 1914 
further changes of a similar character, hardly less 
important under a practical aspect, were upon the 
point of receiving the Royal Assent. 3 

Both these sets of changes — that which had been 
already accomplished and the other which was about 
to pass into law — had this in common, that even 
upon the admissions of their own authors they were 
incomplete. Neither in the Parliament Act nor in 
the Home Rule Act was there finality. The com- 
position of the Second Chamber had been set down 
for early consideration, whilst a revision of the 
constitutional relations between England, Scotland, 
and Wales was promised so soon as the case of Ireland 
had been dealt with. 

It seemed as if the modern spirit had at last, in 
earnest, opened an inquisition upon the adequacy of 
our ancient unwritten compact, which upon the 
whole, had served its purpose well for upwards of 
two hundred years. It seemed as if that compact 
were in the near future to be tested thoroughly, and 
examined in respect of its fitness for dealing with the 
needs of the time — with the complexities and the 
vastness of the British Empire — with the evils which 
prey upon us from within, and with the dangers which 
threaten us from without. 

Questioners were not drawn from one party alone. 

1 Parliament Act became law August 1911. 2 1689. 

3 Home Rule Bill became law August 1914. 



CONSTITUTIONAL CHANGES 189 

Tliey were pressing forwards from all sides. It was Part hi. 
not merely the case of Ireland, or the powers of the Chapter 
Second Chamber, or its composition, or the general _^_ 
congestion of business, or the efficiency of the House A revoiu- 
of Commons : it was the whole machinery of govern- period. 
ment which seemed to need overhauling and re- 
consideration in the light of new conditions. Most 
important of all these constitutional issues was that 
which concerned the closer union of the Empire. 

It was little more than eighty years since the Iron 
Duke had described the British Constitution as an in- 
comparably devised perfection which none but a mad- 
man would seek to change. That was not now the 
creed of any political party or indeed of any thinking 
man. No one was satisfied with things as they were. 
Many of the most respectable old phrases had become 
known for empty husks, out of which long since 
had dropped whatever seed they may originally 
have contained. Many of the old traditions were 
dead or sickly, and their former adherents were 
now wandering at large, like soldiers in the middle 
ages, when armies were disbanded in foreign parts, 
seeking a new allegiance, and constituting in the 
meanwhile a danger to security and the public 
peace. 

And also, within this brief period, the highest 
offices had become vacant, and many great figures 
had passed from the scene. Two sovereigns had 
died full of honour. Two Prime Ministers had also 
died, having first put off the burden of office, each at 
the zenith of his popularity. Of the two famous men 
upon the Unionist side who remained when Lord 
Salisbury tendered his resignation, the one since 
1906 had been wholly withdrawn from public life, 



190 THE SPIRIT OF BRITISH POLICY 

Part hi. while the other, four years later, had passed the 

Chapter leadership into younger hands. 1 

' There is room for an almost infinite variety of 

Arevoiu- estimate as to the influence which is exercised by 

period. pre-eminent characters upon public affairs and 
national ideals. The verdict of the day after is always 
different from that of a year after. The verdict of 
the next generation, while differing from both, is apt 
to be markedly different from that of the generation 
which follows it. The admiration or censure of the 
moment is followed by a reaction no less surely than 
the reaction itself is followed by a counter-reaction. 
Gradually the oscillations become shorter, as matters 
pass out of the hands of journalists and politicians 
into those of the historian. Possibly later judgments 
are more true. We have more knowledge, of a kind. 
Seals are broken one by one, and we learn how this 
man really thought and how the other acted, in both 
cases differently from what had been supposed. We 
have new facts submitted to us, and possibly come 
nearer the truth. But while we gain so much, we 
also lose in other directions. We lose the sharp 
savour of the air. The keen glance and alert curiosity 
of contemporary vigilance are lacking. Conditions 
and circumstances are no longer clear, and as genera- 
tion after generation passes away they become more 
dim. The narratives of the great historians and 
novelists are to a large extent either faded or false. 
We do not trust the most vivid presentments written 
by the man of genius in his study a century after the 
event, while we know well that even the shrewdest of 
contemporaneous observers is certain to omit many 

1 Mr. Chamberlain died July 2, 1914 ; Mr. Balfour resigned the leadership 
of the Unionist party on November 8, 1911. 



DEATH OF QUEEN VICTORIA 191 

of the essentials. If Macaulay is inadequate in one Pabt iil 
direction, Pepys is equally inadequate in another. Chapter 
And if the chronicler at the moment, and the historian — 1 
in the future are not to be wholly believed, the writer J^ 3 ™ 1 u * 
who comments after a decade or less upon things period. 
which are fresh in his memory is liable to another 
form of error ; for either he is swept away by the full 
current of the reaction, or else his judgments are 
embittered by a sense of the hopelessness of swimming 
against it. 

This much, however, may be said safely — that the 
withdrawal of any pre-eminent character from the 
scene, whether it be Queen Victoria or King Edward, 
Lord Salisbury or Mr. Chamberlain, produces in a 
greater or less degree that same loosening of allegiance 
and disturbance of ideas, which are so much dreaded 
by the conservative temperament from the removal 
of an ancient institution. For a pre-eminent char- 
acter is of the same nature as an institution. The 
beliefs, loyalties, and ideals of millions were attached 
to the personality of the Queen. The whole of that 
prestige which Queen Victoria drew from the awe, 
reverence, affection, and prayers of her people could 
not be passed along with the crown to King Edward. 
The office of sovereign was for the moment stripped 
and impoverished of some part of its strength, and 
was only gradually replenished as the new monarch 
created a new, and to some extent a different, loyalty 
of his own. So much is a truism. But, when there 
is already a ferment in men's minds, the disappearance 
in rapid succession of the pre-eminent characters of 
the age helps on revolution by putting an end to a 
multitude of customary attachments, and by setting 
sentiments adrift to wander in search of new heroes. 



192 THE SPIRIT OF BRITISH POLICY 

paut hi. A change of some importance had also come over 
Chapter the character of the House of Commons. The old 

'_ idea that it was a kind of grand jury of plain men, 

a revoiu- capable in times of crisis of breaking with their parties, 

tionary •*- . . . 

period. had at last finally disappeared. In politics there 
was no longer any place for plain men. The need 
was for professionals, and professionals of this sort, 
like experts in other walks of life, were worthy of 
their hire. 

The decision to pay members of Parliament came 
as no surprise. The marvel was rather that it 
had not been taken at an earlier date, seeing that 
for considerably more than a century this item had 
figured in the programmes of all advanced reformers. 
The change, nevertheless, when it came, was no 
trivial occurrence, but one which was bound funda- 
mentally to affect the character of the popular 
assembly ; whether for better or worse was a matter 
of dispute. 

Immense, however, as were the possibilities con- 
tained in the conversion of unpaid amateurs into 
professional and stipendiary politicians, what excited 
even more notice at the time than the thing itself, 
was the way in which it was brought about. No 
attempt was made to place this great constitutional 
reform definitely and securely upon the statute book. 
To have followed this course would have meant sub- 
mitting a bill, and a bill would have invited discussion 
at all its various stages. Moreover, the measure 
might have been challenged by the House of Lords, 
in which case delay would have ensued ; and a subject, 
peculiarly susceptible to malicious misrepresentation, 
would have been kept — possibly for so long as three 
years — under the critical eyes of public opinion. 



CHANGE IN HOUSE OF COMMONS 193 

Apparently this benevolent proposal was one of those part hi. 
instances, so rare in modern political life, where Chapter 
neither publicity nor advertisement was sought. On ^_ 
the contrary, the object seemed to be to do good Arevoiu- 
by stealth ; and for this purpose a simple financial p 3f 
resolution was all that the law required. The Lords 
had recently been warned off and forbidden to in- 
terfere with money matters, their judgment being 
under suspicion, owing to its supposed liability to 
be affected by motives of self-interest. The House 
of Commons was therefore sole custodian of the 
public purse ; and in this capacity its members were 
invited to vote themselves four hundred pounds a 
year all round, as the shortest and least ostentatious 
way of raising the character and improving the 
quality of the people's representatives. 

Even by July 1914 the effect of this constitutional 
amendment upon our old political traditions had 
become noticeable in various directions. But the 
means by which it was accomplished are no less 
worthy of note than the reform itself, when we are 
endeavouring to estimate the changes which have 
come over Parliament during this short but revolu- 
tionary epoch. The method adopted seemed to 
indicate a novel attitude on the part of members 
of the House of Commons towards the Imperial 
Exchequer, on the part of the Government towards 
members of the House of Commons, and on the part 
of both towards the people whom they trusted. It 
was adroit, expeditious, and businesslike ; and to this 
extent seemed to promise well for years to come, 
when the professionals should have finally got rid of 
the amateurs, and taken things wholly into their 
own hands. Hostile critics, it is true, denounced the 

o 



194 THE SPIRIT OF BRITISH POLICY 

Part iii. reform bluntly as corruption, and the method of its 
Chapter achievement as furtive and cynical ; but for this 
L class of persons no slander is ever too gross — They 
a revoiu- ~haw said. Quhat say they ? Let them be saying. 

tionary " 

period. 

The party leaders were probably neither worse 
men nor better than they had been in the past ; but 
they were certainly smaller ; while on the other hand 
the issues with which they found themselves con- 
fronted were bigger. 

Great characters are like tent-pegs. One of their 
uses is to prevent the political camp from being 
blown to ribbons. Where they are too short or too 
frail, we may look for such disorders as have repeated 
themselves at intervals during the past few years. 
A blast of anger or ill-temper has blown, or a gust of 
sentiment, or even a gentle zephyr of sentimentality, 
and the whole scene has at once become a confusion 
of napping canvas, tangled cordage, and shouting, 
struggling humanity. Such unstable conditions are 
fatal to equanimity ; they disturb the fortitude of 
the most stalwart follower, and cause doubt and 
distrust on every hand. 

Since the Liberal Government came into power 
in the autumn of 1905, neither of the great parties 
had succeeded in earning the respect of the other ; 
and as the nature of man is not subject to violent 
fluctuations, it may safely be concluded that this 
misfortune had been due either to some defect or 
inadequacy of leadership, or else to conditions of an 
altogether extraordinary character. 

During these ten sessions the bulk of the statute 
book had greatly increased, and much of this increase 
was no doubt healthy tissue. This period, notwith- 



DEMOCRACY AND LEADERSHIP 195 

standing, will ever dwell in the memory as a squalid part hi. 
episode. Especially is this the case when we contrast Chapter 
the high hopes and promises, not of one party alone, j_ 
with the results which were actually achieved. a revoiu- 

Democracy, if the best, is also the most delicate period. 
form of human government. None suffers so swiftly 
or so sorely from any shortage in the crop of character. 
None is so dependent upon men, and so little capable 
of being supported by the machine alone. When 
the leading of parties is in the hands of those who 
lack vision and firmness, the first effect which mani- 
fests itself is that parties begin to slip their principles. 
Some secondary object calls for and obtains the 
sacrifice of an ideal. So the Unionists in 1909 threw 
over the order and tradition of the state, the very 
ark of their political covenant, when they procured 
the rejection of the Budget by the House of Lords. 
So the Liberal Government in 1910, having solemnly 
undertaken to reform the constitution — a work not 
unworthy of the most earnest endeavour — went back 
upon their word, and abandoned their original pur- 
pose. For one thing they grew afraid of the clamour 
of their partisans. For another they were tempted 
by the opportunity of advantages which — as they 
fondly imagined — could be easily and safely secured 
during the interval while all legislative powers were 
temporarily vested in the Commons. Nor were 
these the only instances where traditional policy had 
been diverted, and where ideals had been bargained 
away, in the hope that thereby objects of a more 
material sort might be had at once in exchange. 

The business of leadership is to prevent the aban- 
donment of the long aim for the sake of the short. 
The rank and file of every army is at all times most 



196 THE SPIRIT OF BRITISH POLICY 

Part hi. dangerously inclined to this fatal temptation, not 
Chapter necessarily dishonestly, but from a lack of foresight 

___ and sense of proportion. 
a revoiu- Some dim perception of cause and effect had begun 

tionary . .. , 

period. to dawn during the years 1912 and 1913 upon the 
country, and even upon the more sober section of the 
politicians. An apprehension had been growing 
rapidly, and defied concealment, that the country 
was faced by a very formidable something, to which 
men hesitated to give a name, but which was clearly 
not to be got rid of by the customary methods of 
holding high debates about it, and thereafter marching 
into division lobbies. While in public, each party 
was concerned to attribute the appearance of this 
unwelcome monster solely to the misdeeds of their 
opponents, each party knew well enough in their 
hearts that the danger was due at least in some 
measure to their own abandonment of pledges, 
principles, and traditions. 

At Midsummer 1914 most people would probably 
have said that the immediate peril was Ireland and 
civil war. A few months earlier many imagined that 
trouble of a more general character was brewing 
between the civil and military powers, and that an 
issue which they described as that of ' the Army 
versus the People ' would have to be faced. A few 
years earlier there was a widespread fear that the 
country might be confronted by some organised 
stoppage of industry, and that this would lead to 
revolution. Throughout the whole of this period of 
fourteen years the menace of war with Germany had 
been appearing, and disappearing, and reappearing, 
very much as a whale shows his back, dives, rises at 
some different spot, and dives again. For the moment, 



MR. ASQUITH'S PRE-EMINENCE 197 

however, this particular anxiety did not weigh Part hi. 
heavily on the public mind. The man in the street Chapter 
had been assured of late by the greater part of the ' 
press and politicians — even by ministers themselves — A revolu - 

i i ■ i i • c • t i i -ii tiouary 

that our relations with this formidable neighbour were period. 
friendlier and more satisfactory than they had been 
for some considerable time. 

At Midsummer 1914, that is to say about six 
weeks before war broke out, the pre-eminent character 
in British politics was the Prime Minister. No other 
on either side of the House approached him in 
prestige, and so much was freely admitted by foes 
as well as friends. 

When we are able to arrive at a fair estimate of 
the man who is regarded as the chief figure of his 
age, we have an important clue to the aspirations 
and modes of thought of the period in which he lived. 
A people may be known to some extent by the leaders 
whom it has chosen to follow. 

Mr. Asquith entered Parliament in 1886, and 
before many months had passed his reputation was 
secure. Mr. Gladstone, ever watchful for youthful 
talent, promoted him at a bound to be Home Secre- 
tary, when the Cabinet of 1892 came into precarious 
existence. No member of this government justified 
his selection more admirably. But the period of 
office was brief. Three years later, the Liberal 
party found itself once again in the wilderness, where 
it continued to wander, rent by dissensions both as 
to persons and principles, for rather more than a 
decade. 

When Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman returned 
to office in the autumn of 1905, Mr. Asquith became 



198 THE SPIRIT OF BRITISH POLICY 

Part in. Chancellor of the Exchequer, and was speedily 

Chapter accepted as the minister next in succession to his 

L chief. He was then just turned fifty, so that, de- 

a revoiu- spite the delays which had occurred, it could not be 

perioZ said that fortune had behaved altogether unkindly. 

Two and a half years later, in April 1908, he 

succeeded to the premiership without a rival, and 

without a dissentient voice. 

The ambition, however, which brought him so 
successfully to the highest post appeared to have 
exhausted a great part of its force in attainment, and 
to have left its possessor without sufficient energy 
for exercising those functions which the post itself 
required. The career of Mr. Asquith in the highest 
office reminds one a little of the fable of the Hare and 
the Tortoise. In the race which we all run with slow- 
footed fate, he had a signal advantage in the speed of 
his intellect, in his capacity for overtaking arrears 
of work which would have appalled any other minister, 
and for finding, on the spur of the moment, means for 
extricating his administration from the most threaten- 
ing positions. But of late, like the Hare, he had 
come to believe himself invincible, and had yielded 
more and more to a drowsy inclination. He had 
seemed to fall asleep for long periods, apparently in 
serene confidence that, before the Tortoise could 
pass the winning-post, somebody or something — 
in all probability the Unionist party with the clamour 
of a premature jubilation — would awaken him in 
time to save the race. 

So far as Parliament was concerned, his confid- 
ence in his own qualities was not misplaced. Again 
and again, the unleadered energies or ungoaded 
indolence of his colleagues landed the Government 



WAIT AND SEE 199 

in a mess. But as often as this happened Mr. Asquith Part hi. 
always advanced upon the scene and rescued his Chapter 

party, by putting the worst blunder in the best light. '_ 

He obligingly picked his stumbling lieutenants out £ re ™iu- 

o b J r O m tionary 

of the bogs into which — largely, it must be admitted, period. 
for want of proper guidance from their chief — they 
had had the misfortune to fall. Having done this in 
the most chivalrous manner imaginable, he earned 
their gratitude and devotion. In this way he main- 
tained a firm hold upon the leadership ; if indeed 
it" can properly be termed leadership to be the best 
acrobat of the troupe, and to step forward and do the 
feats after your companions have failed, and the 
audience has begun to ' boo.' 

Some years ago Mr. Asquith propounded a maxim 
— wait-and-see— which greatly scandalised and annoyed 
the other side. This formula was the perfectly natural 
expression of his character and policy. In the peculiar 
circumstances of the case it proved itself to be a 
successful parliamentary expedient. Again and again 
it wrought confusion among his simple-minded oppon- 
ents, who — not being held together by any firm 
authority — followed their own noses, now in one 
direction, now in another, upon the impulse of the 
moment. It is probable that against a powerful 
leader, who had his party well in hand, this policy of 
makeshift and delay would have brought its author 
to grief. But Unionists were neither disciplined nor 
united, and they had lacked leadership ever since 
they entered upon opposition. 

For all its excellency, Mr. Asquith's oratory never 
touched the heart. And very rarely indeed did it 
succeed in convincing the cool judgment of people 
who had experience at first hand of the matters 



200 THE SPIRIT OF BRITISH POLICY 

part in. under discussion. There was lacking anything in 
chapter the nature of a personal note, which might have 
L related the ego of the speaker to the sentiments 
Arevoiu- which he announced so admirably. Also there was 
perioZ something which suggested that his knowledge had 
not been gained by looking at the facts face to face ; 
but rather by the rapid digestion of minutes and 
memoranda, which had been prepared for him by 
clerks and secretaries, and which purported to pro- 
vide, in convenient tabloids, all that it was necessary 
for a parliamentarian to know. 

The style of speaking which is popular nowadays, 
and of which Mr. Asquith is by far the greatest 
master, would not have been listened to with an equal 
favour in the days of our grandfathers. In the 
Parliaments which assembled at Westminster in the 
period between the passing of the Reform Bill and 
the founding of the Eighty Club, 1 the country- 
gentlemen and the men-of-business — two classes of 
humanity who are constantly in touch with, and 
drawing strength from, our mother earth of hard fact 2 
— met and fought out their differences during two 
generations. In that golden age it was all but un- 
thinkable that a practising barrister should ever 
have become Prime Minister. The legal profession 
at this time had but little influence in counsel ; still 
less in Parliament and on the platform. The middle 
classes were every whit as jealous and distrustful 

1 1832-1880. 

2 They had an excellent sense of reality as regards their own affairs, and 
there between them covered a fairly wide area ; but they were singularly 
lacking either in sympathy or imagination with regard to the affairs of other 
nations and classes. Their interest in the poor was confined for the most 
part to criticism of one another with regard to conditions of labour. The 
millowners thought that the oppression of the peasantry was a scandal ; 
while the landowners considered that the state ,of things prevailing in 
factories was much worse than slavery. Cf. Disraeli's Sybil. 



POLITICAL LAWYERS 201 

of the intervention of the lawyer-advocate in public part hi. 
affairs as the landed gentry themselves. But in the Chapter 
stage of democratic evolution, which we entered on __ 
the morrow of the Mid-Lothian campaigns, and in Arevoiu- 
which we still remain, the popular, and even the period. 
parliamentary, audience has gradually ceased to con- 
sist mainly of country-gentlemen interested in the 
land, and of the middle-classes who are engaged in 
trade. It has grown to be at once less discriminating 
as to the substance of speeches, and more exacting 
as to their form. 

A representative assembly which entirely lacked 
lawyers would be impoverished; but one in which 
they are the predominant, or even a very important 
element, is usually in its decline. It is strange that 
an order of men, who in their private and professional 
capacities are so admirable, should nevertheless pro- 
duce baleful effects when they come to play too great 
a part in public affairs. Trusty friends, delightful 
companions, stricter perhaps than any other civil 
profession in all rules of honour, they are none the 
less, without seeking to be so, the worst enemies of 
representative institutions. The peculiar danger of 
personal monarchy is that it so easily submits to 
draw its inspiration from an adulatory priesthood, 
and the peculiar danger of that modern form of con- 
stitutional government which we call democracy, is 
that lawyers, with the most patriotic intentions, are 
so apt to undo it. 

Lawyers see too much of life in one way, too little 
in another, to make them safe guides in practical 
matters. Their experience of human affairs is made 
up of an infinite number of scraps cut out of other 
people's lives. They learn and do hardly anything 



202 THE SPIRIT OF BRITISH POLICY 

Part hi. except through intermediaries. Their clients are 
Chapter introduced, not in person, but in the first instance, 

'_ on paper — through the medium of solicitors' 'instruc- 

Arevoiu- tions.' Litigants appear at consultations in their 

tionary . 

period. counsel's chambers under the chaperonage of their 
attorneys ; their case is considered ; they receive 
advice. Then perhaps, if the issue comes into court, 
they appear once again — in the witness-box — and are 
there examined, cross-examined, and re-examined 
under that admirable system for the discovery of 
truth which is ordained in Anglo-Saxon countries, 
and which consists in turning, for the time being, 
nine people in every ten out of their true natures 
into hypnotised rabbits. Then the whole thing is 
ended, and the client disappears into the void from 
whence he came. What happens to him afterwards 
seldom reaches the ears of his former counsel. Whether 
the advice given to him in consultation has proved 
right or wrong in practice, rarely becomes known to 
the great man who gave it. 

Plausibility, an alert eye for the technical trip or 
fall — the great qualities of an advocate — do not 
necessarily imply judgment of the most valuable 
sort outside courts of law. The farmer who manures, 
ploughs, harrows, sows, and rolls in his crop is punished 
in his income, if he has done any one of these things 
wrongly, or at the wrong season. The shopkeeper 
who blunders in his buying or his selling, or the 
manufacturer who makes things as they should not 
be made, suffers painful consequences to a certainty. 
His error pounds him relentlessly on the head. Not 
so the lawyer. His errors for the most part are visited 
on others. His own success or non-success is largely 
a matter of words and pose. If he is confident and 



ME. ASQUITH'S OKATORY 203 

adroit, the dulness of the jury or the senility of the Part hi. 
bench can be made to appear, in the eyes of the Chapter 

worsted client, as the true causes of his defeat. And _ 

the misfortune is that in politics, which under its t A revolu - 

- 1 - ' m tionary 

modern aspect is a trade very much akin to advo- period, 
cacy, there is a temptation, with all but the most 
patriotic lawyers, to turn to account at Westminster 
the skill which they have so laboriously acquired in 
the Temple. 

Of course there have been, and will ever be, 
exceptions. Alexander Hamilton was a lawyer, 
though he was a soldier in the first instance. Abraham 
Lincoln was a lawyer. But we should have to go 
back to the 'glorious revolution' of 1688 before we 
could find a parallel to either of these two in our own 
history. Until the last two decades England has 
never looked favourably on lawyer leaders. This 
was regarded by some as a national peculiarity ; by 
others as a safeguard of our institutions. But by 
the beginning of the twentieth century it was clear 
that lawyers had succeeded in establishing their 
predominance in the higher walks of English politics, 
as thoroughly as they had already done wherever 
parliamentary government exists throughout the 
world. 

During this epoch, when everything was sacrificed 
to perspicuity and the avoidance of boredom, Mr. 
Asquith's utterances led the fashion. His ministry 
was composed to a large extent of politicians bred 
in the same profession and proficient in the same 
arts as himself ; but he towered above them all, the 
supreme type of the lawyer-statesman. 

His method was supremely skilful. In its own 
way it had the charm of perfect artistry, even though 



204 THE SPIRIT OF BRITISH POLICY 

Part in. the product of the art was hardly more permanent 
Chapter than that of the cordon bleu who confections ices in 
' fancy patterns. And not only was the method well 
a revoiu- suited to the taste of popular audiences, but equally 
period. so to the modern House of Commons. That body, 
also, was now much better educated in matters which 
can be learned out of newspapers and books ; far 
more capable of expressing its meanings in well- 
chosen phrases arranged in a logical sequence; far 
more critical of words — if somewhat less observant 
of things — than it was during the greater part of the 
reign of Queen Victoria. 

To a large extent the House of Commons consisted 
of persons with whom public utterance was a trade. 
There were lawyers in vast numbers, journalists, 
political organisers, and professional lecturers on a 
large variety of subjects. And even among the 
labour party, where we might have expected to find 
a corrective, the same tendency was at work, perhaps 
as strongly as in any other quarter. For although 
few types of mankind have a shrewder judgment 
between reality and dialectic than a thoroughly 
competent ' workman,' labour leaders were not 
chosen because they were first-class workmen, but 
because they happened to be effective speakers on 
the platform or at the committee table. 

To a critic, looking on at the play from out- 
side, Mr. Asquith's oratory appeared to lack heart 
and the instinct for reality ; his leadership, the 
qualities of vigilance, steadfastness, and authority. 
He did not prevail by personal force, but by 
adroit confutation. His debating, as distinguished 
from his political, courage would have been ad- 
mitted with few reservations even by an opponent. 



HIS CHARACTER 205 

Few were so ready to meet their enemies in the part hi. 
gate of discussion. Few, if any, were so capable of Chapter 

retrieving the fortunes of their party — even when '_ 

things looked blackest — if it were at all possible to Arevoiu- 

i* i 1 • i i rii t> i tionary 

accomplish this by the weapons of debate. But the period. 
medium must be debate — not action or counsel — if 
Mr. Asquith's pre-eminence was to assert itself. In 
debate he had all the confidence and valour of the 
mMtre d'armes, who knows himself to be the superior 
in skill of any fencer in his own school. 

Next to Lord Rosebery he was the figure of most 
authority among the Liberal Imperialists, and yet 
this did not sustain his resolution when the Cabinet 
of 1905 proceeded to pare down the naval estimates. 
He was the champion of equal justice, as regards the 
status of Trades Unions, repelling the idea of ex- 
ceptional and favouring legislation with an eloquent 
scorn. Yet he continued to hold his place when his 
principles were thrown overboard by his colleagues 
in 1906. Again when he met Parliament in February 
1910 he announced his programme with an air of 
heroic firmness. 1 It is unnecessary to recall the 
particulars of this episode, and how he was upheld 
in his command only upon condition that he would 
alter his course to suit the wishes of mutineers. 
And in regard to the question of Home Rule, his 
treatment of it from first to last had been charac- 
terised by the virtues of patience and humility, 
rather than by those of prescience or courage. 

A ' stellar and undiminishable ' something, around 
which the qualities and capacities of a man revolve 
obediently, and under harmonious restraint — like 

1 I.e. curtailment of the powers of the House of Lords and its reform. 
Only the first was proceeded with. 



206 THE SPIRIT OF BRITISH POLICY 

part iii. the planetary bodies — is perhaps as near as we can 
Chapter get to a definition of human greatness. But in the 

1 case of Mr. Asquith, for some years prior to July 1914, 

a revoiu- the central force of his nature had seemed inadequate 
period. for imposing the law of its will upon those brilliant 
satellites his talents. As a result, the solar system 
of his character had fallen into confusion, and especi- 
ally since the opening of that year had appeared to 
be swinging lop-sided across the political firmament 
hastening to inevitable disaster. 



CHAPTER II 

THREE GOVERNING IDEAS 

At the death of Queen Victoria the development part in. 
of the British Commonwealth entered upon a new Chapter 

phase. The epoch which followed has no precedent '_ 

in our own previous experience as a nation, nor can ThTee . 
we discover in the records of other empires anything ideas. 
which offers more than a superficial and misleading 
resemblance to it. The issues of this period presented 
themselves to different minds in a variety of different 
lights ; but to all it was clear that we had reached 
one of the great turning-points in our history. 

The passengers on a great ocean liner are apt to 
imagine, because their stomachs are now so little 
troubled by the perturbation of the waves, that it 
no longer profits them to offer up the familiar prayer 
' for those in peril on the sea.' It is difficult for them 
to believe in danger where everything appears so 
steady and well-ordered, and where they can enjoy 
most of the distractions of urban life, from a cine- 
matograph theatre to a skittle - alley, merely by 
descending a gilded staircase or crossing a brightly 
panelled corridor. But this agreeable sense of safety 
is perhaps due in a greater degree to fancy, than to the 
changes which have taken place in the essential facts. 
As dangers have been diminished in one direction 

207 



208 THE SPIRIT OF BRITISH POLICY 

Part hi. risks have been incurred in another. A blunder to-day 

Chapter is more irreparable than formerly, and the havoc 

IL which ensues upon a blunder is vastly more appalling^ 

Three An error of observation or of judgment — the wrong 

faJw? 1116 lever pulled or the wrong button pressed — an order 

which miscarries or is overlooked — and twenty 

thousand tons travelling at twenty knots an hour 

goes to the bottom, with its freight of humanity, 

merchandise, and treasure, more easily, and with 

greater speed and certainty, than in the days of the 

old galleons — than in the days when Drake, in the 

Golden Hind of a hundred tons burden, beat up against 

head winds in the Straits of Magellan, and ran before 

the following gale off the Cape of Storms. 

Comfort, whether in ships of travel or of state, is 
not the same thing as security. It never has been, 
and it never will be. 

The position after Queen Victoria's death also 
differed from all previous times in another way. 
After more than three centuries of turmoil and expan- 
sion, the British race had entered into possession of 
an estate so vast, so rich in all natural resources, that 
a sane mind could not hope for, or even dream of, 
any further aggrandisement. Whatever may be the 
diseases from which the British race suffered during 
the short epoch between January 1901 and July 1914, 
megalomania was certainly not one of them. 

The period of acquisition being now acknowledged 
at an end, popular imagination became much occupied 
with other things. It assumed, too lightly and 
readily perhaps, that nothing was likely to interfere 
with our continuing to hold what we had got. If there 
was not precisely a law of nature, which precluded 
the possessions of the British Empire from ever being 



SOCIAL AND CONSTITUTIONAL REFORM 209 

taken away, at any rate there was the law of nations. Part hi. 
The public opinion of the world would surely revolt Chapter 

against so heinous a form of sacrilege. Having '_ 

assumed so much, placidly and contentedly, and Three 

., • i i i -ii governing 

without even a tremor either as to the good-will or ideas. 
the potency of the famous Concert of Europe, the 
larger part of public opinion tended to become more 
and more engrossed in other problems. It began to 
concern itself earnestly with the improvement of the 
condition of the people, and with the reform and 
consolidation of institutions. Incidentally, and as 
a part of each of these endeavours, the development 
of an estate which had come, mainly by inheritance, 
into the trusteeship of the British people, began 
seriously to occupy their thoughts. 

These were problems of great worth and dignity, but 
nevertheless there was one condition of their successful 
solution, which ought to have been kept in mind, 
but which possibly was somewhat overlooked. If we 
allowed ourselves to be so much absorbed by these two 
problems that we gave insufficient heed to our defences, 
it was as certain as any human forecast could be, that 
the solution of a great deal, which was perplexing 
us in the management of our internal affairs, would 
be summarily taken out of the hands of Britain and 
her Dominions and solved according to the ideas of 
strangers. 

If we were to bring our policy of social and 
constitutional improvement and the development 
of our estate to a successful issue, we must be safe 
from interruption from outside. We must secure 
ourselves against foreign aggression ; for we needed 
time. Our various problems could not be solved 
in a day or even in a generation. The most urgent 

p 



210 THE SPIRIT OF BRITISH POLICY 

Part hi. of all matters was security r , for it was the prime 

Chapter condition of all the rest. 
IL We desired, not merely to hold what we had got, 

Three but to enjoy it, and make it fructify and prosper, in 

ideas. our own way, and under our own institutions. For 
this we needed peace within our own sphere ; and 
therefore it was necessary that we should be strong 
enough to enforce peace. 

During the post-Victorian period — this short epoch 
of transition — there were therefore three separate 
sets of problems which between them absorbed the 
energies of public men and occupied the thoughts of 
all private persons, at home and in the Dominions, 
to whom the present and future well-being of their 
country was a matter of concern. 

The first of these problems was Defence : How 
might the British Commonwealth, which held so 
vast a portion of the habitable globe, and which was 
responsible for the government of a full quarter of 
all the people who dwelt thereon — how might it best 
secure itself against the dangers whicn threatened 
it from without ? 

The second was the problem of the Constitution: 
How could we best develop, to what extent must we 
remake or remould, our ancient institutions, so as 
to fit them for those duties and responsibilities which 
new conditions required that they should be able to 
perform ? Under this head we were faced with 
projects, not merely of local self-government, of 
' Home Rule,' and of ' Federalism ' ; not merely 
with the working of the Parliament Act, with the 
composition, functions, and powers of the Second 
Chamber, with the Referendum, the Franchise, and 



IMPORTANCE OF SOCIAL REFORM 211 

such like ; but also with that vast and even more part hi. 
perplexing question — what were to be the future Chapter 

relations between the Mother Country and the self- 1 

governing Dominions on the one hand, and between Three . 
these five democratic nations and the Indian Empire ideas. 
and the Dependencies upon the other ? 

For the third set of problems no concise title has 
yet been found. Social Reform does not cover it, 
though perhaps it comes nearer doing so than any 
other. The matters involved here were so multifarious 
and, apparently at least, so detached one from another 
— they presented themselves to different minds at so 
many different angles and under such different aspects 
— that no single word or phrase was altogether satis- 
factory. But briefly, what all men were engaged in 
searching after — the Labour party, no more and no 
less than the Radicals and the Tories — was how we 
could raise the character and material conditions of 
our people ; how by better organisation we could root 
out needless misery of mind and body ; how we could 
improve the health and the intelligence, stimulate 
the sense of duty and fellowship, the efficiency and 
the patriotism of the whole community. 

Of these three sets of problems with which the 
British race has recently been occupying itself, this, 
the third, is intrinsically by far the most important. 

It is the most important because it is an end in 
itself whereas the other two are only the means for 
achieving this end. Security against foreign attack 
is a desirable and worthy object only in order to 
enable us to approach this goal. A strong and flexible 
constitution is an advantage only because we believe 
it will enable us to achieve our objects, better and 
more quickly, than if we are compelled to go on working 



212 THE SPIRIT OF BRITISH POLICY 

Part hi. under a system which has become at once rigid and 
Chapter rickety. But while we were bound to realise the 

superior nature of the third set of problems, we should 

Three have been careful at the same time to distinguish 

governing . ° 

ideas. between two things which are very apt to be con- 
fused in political discussions — ultimate importance 
and immediate urgency. 

We ought to have taken into our reckoning both 
the present state of the world and the permanent 
nature of man — all the stuff that dreams and wars 
are made on. We desired peace. W T e needed peace. 
Peace was a matter of. life and death to all our hopes. 
If defeat should once break into the ring of our 
commonwealth — scattered as it is all over the world, 
kept together only by the finest and most delicate 
attachments — it must be broken irreparably. Our 
most immediate interest was therefore to keep defeat, 
and if possible, war, from bursting into our sphere — 
as Dutchmen by centuries of laborious vigilance have 
kept back the sea with dikes. 

The numbers of our people in themselves were no 
security ; nor our riches ; nor even the fact that 
we entertained no aggressive designs. For as it was 
said long ago, ' it never troubles a wolf how many the 
sheep be.' They find no salvation in their heavy 
fleeces and their fat haunches ; nor even in the 
meekness of their hearts, and in their innocence of 
all evil intentions. 

The characteristic of this period may be summed 
up in one short sentence; the vast majority of the 
British people were bent and determined — as they 
had never been bent and determined before — upon 
leaving their country better than they had found it. 



THE RESULTS OF CONFUSION 213 

To some this statement will seem a paradox. Part hi. 
' Was there ever a time," they may ask, " when Chapter 

' there had been so many evidences of popular unrest, 

' discontent, bitterness and anger ; or when there had Three 

... governing 

ever appeared to be so great an inclination, on the ideas. 
' one hand to apathy and cynicism, on the other 
' hand to despair ? " 

Were all this true, it would still be no paradox ; 
but only a natural consequence. Things are very 
liable to slip into this state, when men who are 
in earnest — knowing the facts as they exist in 
their respective spheres ; knowing the evils at first 
hand ; believing (very often with reason) that they 
understand the true remedies — find themselves 
baulked, and foiled, and headed off at every turn, 
their objects misconceived and their motives mis- 
construed, and the current of their wasted efforts 
burying itself hopelessly in the sand. Under such 
conditions as these, public bodies and political parties 
alike — confused by the multitude and congestion of 
issues — are apt to bestow their dangerous attentions, 
now on one matter which happens to dart into the 
limelight, now upon another ; but in the general 
hubbub and perplexity they lose all sense, both of 
true proportion and natural priority. Everything 
is talked about ; much is attempted in a piecemeal, 
slap-dash, impulsive fashion ; inconsiderably little 
is brought to any conclusion whatsoever ; while 
nothing, or next to nothing, is considered on its 
merits, and carried through thoughtfully to a clean 
and abiding settlement. . . . The word 'thorough' 
seemed to have dropped out of the political vocabulary. 
In an age of specialism politics alone was abandoned 
to the Jack-of-all-trades, 



governing 
ideas, 



214 THE SPIRIT OF BRITISH POLICY 

part in. This phenomenon — the depreciated currency of 
Chapter public character — was not peculiar to one party more 
IL than another. It was not even peculiar to this 
Three particular time. It has shown itself at various 
epochs — much in the same way as the small-pox and 
the plague — when favoured by insanitary conditions. 
The sedate Scots philosopher, Adam Smith, writing 
during the gloomy period which fell upon England 
after the glory of the great Chatham had departed, 
could not repress his bitterness against " that insidious 
' and crafty animal, vulgarly called a statesman 
' or politician, whose councils are directed by the 
' momentary fluctuations of affairs. " It would seem 
as if the body politic is not unlike the human, and 
becomes more readily a prey to vermin, when it has 
sunk into a morbid condition. 

Popular judgment may be trusted as a rule, and 
in the long run, to decide a clear issue between truth 
and falsehood,, and to decide it in favour of the 
former. But it becomes perplexed, when it is called 
upon to discriminate between the assurances of two 
rival sets of showmen, whose eagerness to outbid 
each other in the public favour leaves truthfulness 
out of account. In the absence of gold, one brazen 
counterfeit rings very much like another. People 
may be suspicious of both coins ; but on the whole 
their fancy is more readily caught by the optimist 
effigy than the pessimist. They may not place 
entire trust in the ' ever -cheerful man of sin,' with 
his flattery, his abounding sympathy, his flowery 
promises, and his undefeated hopefulness ; but 
they prefer him at any rate to ' the melancholy 
Jaques,' booming maledictions with a mournful 



ARTIFICIAL ANTAGONISMS 215 

constancy, like some bittern in the desolation of the part hi. 

marshes. Chapter 

So far as principles were concerned most of the IL 
trouble was unnecessary. Among the would-be Three 
reformers — among those who sincerely desired to faST™ 8 
bring about efficiency within their own spheres — 
there was surprisingly little that can truly be called 
antagonism. But competition of an important 
kind — competition for public attention and priority 
of treatment — had produced many of the unfortunate 
results of antagonism. It was inevitable that this 
lamentable state of things must continue, until it 
had been realised that one small body of men, elected 
upon a variety of cross issues, could not safely be left 
in charge of the defence of the Empire, the domestic 
welfare of the United Kingdom, and the local govern- 
ment of its several units. 

It was not merely that the various aims were not 
opposed to one another ; they were actually helpful 
to one another. Often, indeed, they were essential 
to the permanent success of one another. The man 
who desired to improve the conditions of the poor was 
not, therefore, the natural enemy of him who wanted 
to place the national defences on a secure footing. 
And neither of these was the natural enemy of others 
who wished to bring about a settlement of the Irish 
question, or of the Constitutional question, or of the 
Imperial question. But owing partly to the inade- 
quacy of the machinery for giving a free course to 
these various aspirations — partly to the fact that the 
machinery itself was antiquated, in bad repair, and 
had become clogged with a variety of obstructions 
— there was an unfortunate tendency on the part of 
every one who had any particular object very much 



216 THE SPIRIT OF BRITISH POLICY 

part in. at heart, to regard every one else who was equally 
Chapter concerned about any other object as an impediment 
IL in his path. 

Three 

faIZ nmg The need of the time, of course, was leadership — 
a great man — or better still two great men, one on 
each side — like the blades of a pair of scissors — to 
cut a way out of the confusion by bringing their keen 
edges into contact. But obviously, the greater the con- 
fusion the harder it is for leadership to assert itself. We 
may be sure enough that there were men of character 
and capacity equal to the task if only they could have 
been discovered. But they were not discovered. 

There were other things besides the confusion 
of aims and ideas which made it hard for leaders to 
emerge. The loose coherency of parties which pre- 
vailed during the greater part of the nineteenth 
century had given place to a set of highly organised 
machines, which employed without remorse the 
oriental method of strangulation, against everything 
in the nature of independent effort and judgment. 
The politician class had increased greatly in numbers 
and influence. The eminent and ornamental people 
who were returned to Westminster filled the public 
eye, but they were only a small proportion of the 
whole ; nor is it certain that they exercised the 
largest share of authority. When in the autumn 
of 1913 Sir John Brunner determined to prevent 
Mr. Churchill from obtaining the provisions for the 
Navy which were judged necessary for the safety 
of the Empire, the method adopted was to raise the 
National Liberal Federation against the First Lord 
of the Admiralty, and through the agency of that 
powerful organisation to bring pressure to bear 



BAD MONEY DRIVES OUT GOOD 217 

upon the country, members of Parliament, and the Part hi. 

Cabinet itself. Chapter 

It is unpopular to say that the House of Commons '_ 

has deteriorated in character, but it is true. An Three 
assembly, the members of which cannot call their ideas, 
souls their own, will never tend in an upward direc- 
tion. The machines which are managed with so 
much energy and skill by the external parasites of 
politics, have long ago taken over full responsibility 
for the souls of their nominees. According to 
' Gresham's law,' bad money, if admitted into currency, 
will always end by driving out good. A similar 
principle has been at work for some time past in 
British public life, by virtue of which the baser kind 
of politicians, having got a footing, are driving out 
their betters at a rapid pace. Few members of 
Parliament will admit this fact ; but they are not 
impartial judges, for every one is naturally averse 
from disparaging an institution to which he belongs. 

During the nineteenth century, except at the very 
beginning, and again at the very end of it, very few 
people ever thought of going into Parliament, or 
even into politics, in order that they might thrive 
thereby, or find a field for improving their private 
fortunes. This cannot be said with truth of the 
epoch which has just ended. There has been a change 
both in tone and outlook during the last thirty years. 
Things have been done and approved by the House 
of Commons, elected in December 1910, which it 
is quite inconceivable that the House of Commons, 
returned in 1880, would ever have entertained. The 
Gladstonian era had its faults, but among them laxity 
in matters of finance did not figure. Indeed private 
members, as well as statesmen, not infrequently 



218 THE SPIRIT OF BRITISH POLICY 

Part hi. crossed the border-line which separates purism from 

Chapter pedantry ; occasionally they carried strictness to the 

IL verge of absurdity ; but this was a fault in the right 

Three direction — a great safeguard to the public interest, 

ideas. a peculiarly valuable tendency from the standpoint 

of democracy. 

A twelvemonth ago a number of very foolish 
persons were anxious to persuade us that the pre- 
dominant issue was the Army versus the People. 
But even the crispness of the phrase was powerless 
to convince public opinion of so staggering an un- 
truth. The predominant issue at that particular 
moment was only what it had been for a good many 
years before — the People versus the Party System. 

What is apt to be ignored is, that with the increase 
of wealth on the one hand, and the extension of the 
franchise on the other, the Party System has gradu- 
ally become a vested interest upon an enormous scale, 
— like the liquor trade of which we hear so much, 
or the haute finance of which perhaps we hear too little. 
Rich men are required in politics, for the reason that 
it is necessary to feed and clothe the steadily in- 
creasing swarms of mechanics who drive, and keep 
in repair, and add to, that elaborate machinery by 
means of which the Sovereign People is cajoled into 
the belief that its Will prevails. From the point of 
view of the orthodox political economist these workers 
are as unproductive as actors, bookmakers, or golf 
professionals ; but they have to be paid, otherwise 
they would starve, and the machines would stop. 
So long as there are plenty of rich men who desire 
to become even richer, or to decorate their names 
with titles, or to move in shining circles, this is 
not at all likely to occur, unless the Party System 



NEED OF RICH MEN 219 

suddenly collapsed, in which case there would be part hi. 

acute distress. Chapter 

There are various grades of these artisans or 

mechanicians of politics, from the professional Three . 

x ■*-. governing 

orgamser or agent who, upon the whole, is no more ideas. 
open to criticism than any other class of mankind 
which works honestly for its living — down to the 
committee-man who has no use for a candidate unless 
he keeps a table from which large crumbs fall in 
profusion. The man who supplements his income 
by means of politics is a greater danger than the other 
who openly makes politics his vocation. The jobbing 
printer, enthusiastically pacifist or protectionist, well 
paid for his hand-bills, and aspiring to more sub- 
stantial contracts ; the smart, ingratiating organiser, 
or hustling, bustling journalist, who receives a com- 
plimentary cheque, or a bundle of scrip, or a seat on 
a board of directors from the patron whom he has 
helped to win an election — very much as at ill- 
regulated shooting parties the head-keeper receives 
exorbitant tips from wealthy sportsmen whom he 
has placed to their satisfaction — all these are deeply 
interested in the preservation of the Party System. 
Innocent folk are often heard wondering why can- 
didates with such strange names — even stranger 
appearance — accents and manner of speech which are 
strangest of all — are brought forward so frequently 
to woo the suffrages of urban constituencies. Clearly 
they are not chosen on account of their political 
knowledge ; for they have none. There are other 
aspirants to political honours who, in comeliness 
and charm of manner, greatly excel them ; whose 
speech is more eloquent, or at any rate less unin- 
telligible. Yet London caucuses in particular have 



220 THE SPIRIT OF BRITISH POLICY 

Part in. a great tenderness for these bejewelled patriots, and 
Chapter presumably there must be reasons for the preference 

1 which they receive. One imagines that in some 

Three inscrutable way they are essential props of the Party 

governing . 

ideas. System in its modern phase. 

The drawing together of the world by steam and 
electricity has brought conspicuous benefits to the 
British Empire. The five self-governing nations of 
which it is composed come closer together year by 
year. Statesmen and politicians broaden the horizons 
of their minds by swift and easy travel. But there 
are drawbacks as well as the reverse under these new 
conditions. To some extent the personnel of demo- 
cracy has tended to become interchangeable, like the 
parts of a bicycle ; and public characters are able to 
transfer their activities from one state to another, 
and even from one hemisphere to another, without a 
great deal of difficulty. This has certain advantages, 
but possibly more from the point of view of the 
individual than from that of the Commonwealth. 
After failure in one sphere there is still hope in another. 
Mr. Micawber, or even Jeremy Diddler, may go the 
round, using up public confidence at one resting-place 
after another. For the Party System is a ready 
employer, and providing a man has a glib tongue, a 
forehead of brass, or an open purse, a position will 
be found for him without too much enquiry made 
into his previous references. 

In a world filled with confusion and illusion the 
Party System has fought at great advantage. Indeed 
it is generally believed to be so firmly entrenched 
that nothing can ever dislodge it. There are dangers, 
however, in arguing too confidently from use and 
wont. Conspicuous failure or disaster might bring 



LAWYEMSM AND LEADEESHIP 221 

ruin on this revered institution, as it has often done Part hi. 
in history upon others no less venerable. The Party Chapter 
System has its weak side. Its wares are mainly _^_ 
make-believes, and if a hurricane happens to burst Three 
suddenly, the caucus may be left in no better plight ideas, 
than Alnaschar with his overturned basket. The 
Party System is not invulnerable against a great man 
or a great idea. But of recent years it has been left 
at peace to go its own way, for the reason that no such 
man or idea has emerged, around which the English 
people have felt that they could cluster confidently. 
There has been no core on which human crystals 
could precipitate and attach themselves, following 
the bent of their nature towards a firm and clear 
belief — or towards the prowess of a man — or towards 
a Man possessed by a Belief. The typical party 
leader during this epoch has neither been a man in 
the heroic sense, nor has he had any belief that could 
be called firm or clear. For the most part he has been 
merely a Whig or Tory tradesman, dealing in oppor- 
tunism ; and for the predominance of the Party System 
this set of conditions was almost ideal. It was in- 
conceivable that a policy of wait-and-see could ever 
resolve a situation of this sort. To fall back on 
lawyerism was perhaps inevitable in the circumstances; 
but to think that it was possible to substitute lawyer- 
ism for leadership was absurd. 

And yet amid this confusion we were aware — 
even at the time — and can see much more clearly 
now the interlude is ended — that there were three 
great ideas running through it all, struggling to 
emerge, to make themselves understood, and to get 
themselves realised. But unfortunately what were 
realities to ordinary men were only counters according 



222 THE SPIRIT OF BRITISH POLICY 

part iii. to the reckoning of the party mechanicians. The 
Chapter first aim and the second — the improvement of the 
IL organisation of society and the conditions of the 
Three poor — the freeing of local aspirations and the knitting 
fdJi™ 111 together of the empire — were held in common by 
the great mass of the British people, although they 
were viewed by one section and another from differ- 
ent angles of vision. The third aim, however — the 
adequate defence of the empire — was not regarded 
warmly, or even with much active interest, by any 
organised section. The people who considered it 
most earnestly were not engaged in party politics. 
The manipulators of the machines looked upon the 
first and the second as means whereby power might 
be gained or retained, but they looked askance upon 
the third as a perilous problem which it was wiser 
and safer to leave alone. The great principles with 
which the names — -among others — of Mr. Chamberlain, 
Lord Roberts, and Mr. Lloyd George are associated, 
were at no point opposed one to another. Each 
indeed was dependent upon the other two for its full 
realisation. And yet, under the artificial entangle- 
ments of the Party System, the vigorous pursuit of 
any one of the three seemed to imperil the success 
of both its competitors. 



CHAPTER III 



POLICY AND ARMAMENTS 



In the post- Victorian epoch, which we have been part hi. 
engaged in considering, the aim of British foreign Chaptek 
policy may be summed up in one word — Security. ^_ 
It was not aggression ; it was not revenge ; it was Policy ami 
not conquest, or even expansion of territories ; it Ss. 
was simply Security. 

It would be absurd, of course, to imagine that 
security is wholly, or even mainly, a question of 
military preparations. " All this is but a sheep 
* in a lion's skin, where the people are of weak 
' courage ; " or where for any reason, the people are 
divided among themselves or disaffected towards 
their government. 

The defences of every nation are of two kinds, 
the organised and the unorganised ; the disciplined 
strength of the Navy and the Army on the one 
hand, the vigour and spirit of the people upon the 
other. 

The vigour of the people will depend largely upon 
the conditions under which they live, upon sufficiency 
of food, the healthiness or otherwise of their employ- 
ments and homes, the proper nourishment and 
upbringing of their children. It is not enough that 
rates of wages should be good, if those who earn them 

223 



224 THE SPIRIT OF BRITISH POLICY 

past hi. have not the knowledge how to use them to the best 

Chapter advantage. It is not always where incomes are 

L lowest that the conditions of life are worst. Measured 

Policy and by infant mortality, and by the health and general 

ments. happiness of the community, the crofters of Scotland, 

who are very poor, seem to have learned the lesson 

how to live better than the highly paid workers in 

many of our great manufacturing towns. 

Education — by which is meant not merely board- 
school instruction, but the influence of the home and 
the surrounding society — is not a less necessary con- 
dition of vigour than wages, sanitary regulations, 
and such like. The spiritual as well as the physical 
training of children, the nature of their amusements, 
the bent of their interests, the character of their aims 
and ideals, at that critical period when the boy or 
girl is growing into manhood or womanhood — all 
these are things which conduce directly, as well as 
indirectly, to the vigour of the race. They are every 
bit as much a part of our system of national defence 
as the manoeuvring of army corps and the gun-practice 
of dreadnoughts. 

The spirit of the people, on the other hand, will 
depend for its strength upon their attachment to 
their own country ; upon their affection for its 
customs, laws, and institutions ; upon a belief in the 
general fairness and justice of its social arrangements ; 
upon the good relations of the various classes of 
which society is composed. The spirit of national 
unity is indispensable even in the case of the most 
powerful autocracy. It is the very foundation of 
democracy. Lacking it, popular government is but 
a house of cards, which the first serious challenge 
from without, or the first strong outburst of dis- 



A TWO-HEADED PRINCIPLE 225 

content from within will bring tumbling to the Part hi. 
ground. Such a feeling of unity can only spring from Chapter 
the prevalence of an opinion among every class of __ 
the community, that their own system, with all its Policy and 
faults, is better suited to their needs, habits, and ments. 
traditions than any other, and that it is worth pre- 
serving, even at the cost of the greatest sacrifices, 
from foreign conquest and interference. 

While a people sapped by starvation and disease 
will be wanting in the vigour necessary for offering 
a prolonged and strenuous resistance, so will a people, 
seething with class hatred and a sense of tyranny 
and injustice, be wanting in the spirit. The problem, 
however, of these unorganised defences, fundamental 
though it is, stands outside the scope of the present 
chapter, which is concerned solely with those defences 
which are organised. 

The beginning of wisdom with respect to all 
problems of defence is the recognition of the two- 
headed principle that Policy depends on Armaments 
just as certainly as Armaments depend on Policy. 

The duty of the Admiralty and the War Office 
is to keep their armaments abreast of the national 
endeavour. It is folly to do more : it' is madness 
to do less. The duty of the Foreign Minister is to 
restrain and hold back his policy, and to prevent 
it from ambitiously outrunning the capacity of the 
armaments which are at his disposal. If he does 
otherwise the end is likely to be humiliation and 
disaster. 

When any nation is unable or unwilling to provide 
the armaments necessary for supporting the policy 
which it has been accustomed to pursue and would 

Q 



226 THE SPIRIT OF BRITISH POLICY 

part hi. like to maintain, it should have the sense to abandon 
chapter that policy for something of a humbler sort before 

IIL the bluff is discovered by the world. 1 
Policy and It may possibly appear absurd to dwell with so 
mSits. much insistence upon a pair of propositions which, 
when they are set down in black and white, will at 
once be accepted as self-evident by ninety-nine men 
out of a hundred. But plain and obvious as they 
are, none in the whole region of politics have been 
more frequently ignored. These two principles have 
been constantly presenting themselves to the eyes of 
statesmen in a variety of different shapes ever since 
history began. 

It may very easily happen that the particular 
policy which the desire for security requires, is 
one which the strength of the national armaments 
at a given moment will not warrant the country in 
pursuing. Faced with this unpleasant quandary, 
what is Government to do, if it be convinced of the 
futility of trying to persuade the people to incur the 
sacrifices necessary for realising the national aspira- 
tions ? Is it to give up the traditional policy, and 
face the various consequences which it is reasonable 
to anticipate ? Or is it to persevere in the policy, 
and continue acting as if the forces at its disposal 
were sufficient for its purpose, when in fact they are 
nothing of the kind ? To follow the former course 

1 American writers have urged criticism of this sort against the arma- 
ments of the U.S.A., which they allege are inadequate to uphold the policy 
of the ' Monroe Doctrine.' The German view of the matter has been stated 
by the Chancellor (April 7, 1913) when introducing the Army Bill : — 
" History knows of no people which came to disaster because it had es- 
' hausted itself in the making of its defences ; but history knows of many 
' peoples which have perished, because, living in prosperity and luxury, 
' they neglected their defences. A people which thinks that it is not rich 
' enough to maintain its armaments shows merely that it has played its 
' part." 



POLITICAL DIFFICULTIES 227 

calls for a surrender which the spirit of the people Part hi. 

will not easily endure, and which may even be fatal Chapter 

to the independent existence of the state. But to _ 

enter upon the latter is conduct worthy of a fraudulent Polic y and 
i i . • , . -i-i anna- 

bankrupt, since it trades upon an imposture, which, meats. 

when it is found out by rival nations, will probably 

be visited by the severest penalties. 

But surely Government has only to make it clear 
to the people that, unless they are willing to bring 
their armaments abreast of their policy, national 
aspirations must be baulked and even national safety 
itself may be endangered. When men are made to 
understand these things, will they not certainly agree 
to do what is necessary, though they may give their 
consent with reluctance ? * 

It is very certain, however, that this outside 
view of the case enormously underrates the difficulties 
which stare the politician out of countenance. In 
matters of this sort it is not so easy a thing to arrive 
at the truth ; much less to state it with such force 
and clearness that mankind will at once recognise 
it for truth, and what is said to the contrary for 
falsehood. The intentions of foreign governments, 
and the dangers arising out of that quarter, are sub- 
jects which it is singularly difficult to discuss frankly, 
without incurring the very evils which every govern- 
ment seeks to avoid. And if these things are not 
easy to discuss, it is exceedingly easy for faction or 
fanatics to misrepresent them. 2 Moreover, the lamen- 
tations of the Hebrew prophets bear witness to the 

1 So the argument runs, and the course of our naval policy since Mr. 
Stead's famous press campaign in 1884 will be cited as an encouragement. 

2 E.g. in the winter of 1908 and spring of 1909, when an influential 
section of the supporters of the present Cabinet chose to believe the false 
assurances of the German Admiralty, and freely accused their own Govern- 
ment of mendacity. 



228 THE SPIRIT OF BRITISH POLICY 

pabt hi. deafness and blindness of generations into whom 

Chapter actual experience of the evils foretold had not already 

111 • burnt the lesson which it was desired to teach. Evils 

policy and which have never been suffered are hard things to 

rants. clothe with reality until it is too late, and words, 

even the most eloquent and persuasive, are but a 

poor implement for the task. 

The policy of a nation is determined upon, so as 
to accord with what it conceives to be its honour, 
safety, and material interests. In the natural 
course of events this policy may check, or be checked 
by, the policy of some other nation. The efforts of 
diplomacy may be successful in clearing away these 
obstructions. If so, well and good ; but if not, 
there is nothing left to decide the issue between the 
two nations but the stern arbitrament of war. 

Moreover, diplomacy itself is dependent upon 
armaments in somewhat the same sense as the 
prosperity of a merchant is dependent upon his 
credit with his bankers. The . news system of the 
world has undergone a revolution since the days 
before steam and telegraphs. It is not merely more 
rapid, but much ampler. The various governments 
are kept far more fully informed of one another's 
affairs, and as a consequence the great issues between 
nations have become clear and sharp. The most 
crafty and smooth-tongued ambassador can rarely 
wheedle his opponents into concessions which are 
contrary to their interests, unless he has something 
more to rely upon than his own guile and plausibility. 
Army corps and battle fleets looming in the distance 
are better persuaders than the subtlest arguments 
and the deftest flattery. 

What, then, is the position of a statesman who 



EXAMPLE OF CHINA 229 

finds himself confronted by a clash of policies, if, part hi. 
when the diplomatic deadlock occurs, he realises Chapter 
that his armaments are insufficient to support his 
aim ? In such an event he is faced with the Policy and 
alternative of letting judgment go by default, or me nts. 
of adding almost certain military disaster to the 
loss of those political stakes for which his nation is 
contending with its rival. Such a position must 
be ignominious in the extreme ; it might even be 
ruinous ; and yet it would be the inevitable fate 
of any country whose ministers had neglected the 
maxim that policy in the last resort is dependent 
upon armaments. 

If we are in search of an example we shall find it 
ready to our hand. The Empire of China is com- 
parable to our own at least in numbers ; for each 
of them contains, as nearly as may be, one quarter 
of the whole human race. And as China has hitherto 
failed utterly to make her armaments sufficient, under 
the stress of modern conditions, to support even 
that meek and passive policy of possession which 
she has endeavoured to pursue, so she has been 
compelled to watch in helplessness while her policy 
has been disregarded by every adventurer. She has 
been pressed by all the nations of the world and 
obliged to yield to their demands. Humiliating con- 
cessions have been wrung from her ; favours even 
more onerous, in the shape of loans, have been 
forced upon her. The resources with which nature 
has endowed her have been exploited by foreigners 
against her will. Her lands have been shorn from 
her and parcelled out among those who were strong, 
and who hungered after them. This conquest and 
robbery has proceeded both by wholesale and retail. 



230 THE SPIRIT OF BRITISH POLICY 

part hi. Because she yielded this to one claimant, another, 
Chapter to keep the balance even, has insisted upon that. 

'_ Safe and convenient harbours, fortified places, islands, 

Policy and vast stretches of territory, have been demanded 
ments. and taken from her almost without a struggle ; and 
all this time she has abstained with a timid caution 
from anything which can justly be termed pro- 
vocation. For more than half a century, none the 
less, China has not been mistress in her own house. 

The reason of this is plain enough — China had 
possessions which other nations coveted, and she 
failed to provide herself with the armaments which 
were necessary to maintain them. 

The British people likewise had possessions which 
other nations coveted — lands to take their settlers, 
markets to buy their goods, plantations to yield 
them raw materials. If it were our set deter- 
mination to hold what our forefathers won, two 
things were necessary : the first, that our policy 
should conform to this aim ; the second, that our 
armaments should be sufficient to support our 
policy. 

A nation which desired to extend its possessions, 
to round off its territories, to obtain access to the sea, 
would probably regard conquest, or at all events 
absorption, as its highest immediate interest. This 
would be the constant aim of its policy, and if its 
armaments did not conform to this policy, the aim 
would not be realised. Examples both of failure and 
success are to be found in the history of Russia from 
the time of Peter the Great, and in that of Prussia 
from the days of the Great Elector. 

A nation — like England or Holland in the six- 
teenth, seventeenth, and eighteenth centuries — which 



BRITISH CONTENTMENT 231 

was seeking to secure against its commercial rivals, Part hi. 
if necessary by force of arms, new markets among Chapter 

civilised but unmilitary races, would require a policy '_ 

and armaments to correspond. Polic y and 

_■*■ arma- 

The British Empire m the stage of development ments. 
which it had reached at the end of the Victorian 
era did not aim at acquisition of fresh territories 
or new markets, save such as might be won peace- 
fully by the skill and enterprise of its merchants. 
It sought only to hold what it already possessed, to 
develop its internal resources, and to retain equal 
rights with its commercial rivals in neutral spheres. 
But in order that those unaggressive objects might 
be realised, there was need of a policy, different 
indeed from that of Elizabeth, of Cromwell, or of 
Chatham, but none the less clear and definite with 
regard to its own ends. And to support this policy 
there was need of armaments, suitable in scale and 
character. 

It was frequently pointed out between the years 
1901 and 1914 (and it lay at the very root of the 
matter), that while we were perfectly satisfied with 
things as they stood, and should have been more than 
content — regarding the subject from the standpoint of 
our own interests — to have left the map of the world 
for ever, as it then was drawn, another nation was 
by no means so well pleased with existing arrange- 
ments. To this envious rival it appeared that we 
had taken more than our fair share — as people are 
apt to do who come early. We had wider territories 
than we could yet fill with our own people ; while 
our neighbour foresaw an early date at which his race 
would be overflowing its boundaries. We had limit- 
less resources in the Dominions and Dependencies 



232 THE SPIRIT OF BRITISH POLICY 

Part hi. overseas, which when developed would provide a 
Chapteb united empire with markets of inestimable value. 

'_ In these respects Germany was in a less favourable 

Policy and position. Indeed, with the exceptions of Russia 

3.ITD.S,- 

ments. and the United States, no other great Power was so 
fortunately placed as ourselves ; and even these 
two nations, although they had an advantage over 
the British Empire by reason of their huge compact 
and coterminous territories, still did not equal it 
in the vastness and variety of their undeveloped 
resources. 

Clearly, therefore, the policy which the needs of 
our Commonwealth required at this great turning- 
point in its history, was not only something different 
from that of any other great Power, but also some- 
thing different from that which had served our own 
purposes in times gone by. Like China, our aim was 
peaceful possession. Unlike China, we ought to have 
kept in mind the conditions under which alone this 
aim was likely to be achieved. It might be irksome 
and contrary to our peaceful inclinations to maintain 
great armaments when we no longer dreamed of 
making conquests ; but in the existing state of the 
world, armaments were unfortunately quite as neces- 
sary for the purpose of enabling us to hold what we 
possessed, as they ever were when our forefathers 
set out to win the Empire. 

In 1904, with the object of promoting harmony 
between the policy and armaments of the British 
Empire, Mr. Balfour created the Committee of 
Imperial Defence. This was undoubtedly a step of 
great importance. His purpose was to introduce 
a system, by means of which ministers and high 
officials responsible for the Navy and Army would 



COMMITTEE OF IMPERIAL DEFENCE 233 

be kept in close touch with the trend of national part hi. 
policy, in so far as it might affect the relations of the Chapter 
Commonwealth with foreign Powers. In like manner ' 
those other ministers and high officials, whose busi- Polic y and 

^. , . . arma- 

ness it was to conduct our diplomacy, maintain an ments. 
understanding with the Dominions, administer our 
Dependencies, and govern India, would be made 
thoroughly conversant with the limitations to our 
naval and military strength. Having this knowledge, 
they would not severally embark on irreconcilable 
or impracticable projects or drift unknowingly into 
dangerous complications. The conception of the 
Committee of Imperial Defence, therefore, was due 
to a somewhat tardy recognition of the two-headed 
principle, that armaments are mere waste of money 
unless they conform to policy, and that policy in 
the last resort must depend on armaments. 

The Committee was maintained by Mr. Balfour's 
successors, and was not allowed (as too often happens 
when there is a change of government) to fall into 
discredit and disuse. 1 But in order that this body 
of statesmen and experts might achieve the ends in 
view, it was essential for them to have realised clearly, 
not only the general object of British policy — which 
indeed was contained in the single word ' Security ' 
— but also the special dangers which loomed in the 
near future. They had then to consider what re- 
ciprocal obligations had already been contracted with 
other nations, whose interests were to some extent 
the same as our own, and what further undertakings 
of a similar character it might be desirable to enter 

1 Innovations of this particular sort have possibly a better chance of 
preserving their existence than some others. ' Boards are screens,' wrote 
John Stuart Mill, or some other profound thinker ; and in politics screens 
are always useful. 



234 THE SPIRIT OF BRITISH POLICY 

Part in. into. Finally, there were the consequences which 

Chapter these obligations and undertakings would entail in 
'_ certain contingencies. It was not enough merely 

Policy and to mumble the word ' Security ' and leave it at that. 

meats. What security implied in the then existing state of 
the world was a matter which required to be in- 
vestigated in a concrete, practical, and business-like 
way. 

Unfortunately, the greater part of these essential 
preliminaries was omitted, and as a consequence, the 
original idea of the Committee of Imperial Defence 
was never realised. Harmonious, flexible, and of 
considerable utility in certain directions, it did not 
work satisfactorily as a whole. The trend of policy 
was, no doubt, grasped in a general way; but, as 
subsequent events have proved, the conditions on 
which alone that line could be maintained, and the 
consequences which it involved, were not at any time 
clearly understood and boldly faced by this august 
body in its corporate capacity. 

The general direction may have been settled ; but 
certainly the course was not marked out ; the rocks 
and shoals remained for the most part uncharted. 
The committee, no doubt, had agreed upon a certain 
number of vague propositions, as, for example, that 
France must not be crushed by Germany, or the 
neutrality of Belgium violated by any one. They 
knew that we were committed to certain obligations — 
or, as some people called them, ' entanglements ' — 
and that these again, in certain circumstances, might 
commit us to others. But what the whole amounted 
to was not realised in barest outline, by the country, 
or by Parliament, or by the Government, or even, 
we may safely conjecture, by the Committee itself. 



CONFUSION WHEN WAR OCCURRED 235 

We have the right to say this, because, if British part hi. 
policy had been realised as a whole by the Committee Chapter 

of Imperial Defence, it would obviously have been '__ 

communicated to the Cabinet, and in its broader P° lic y and 

' . arnia- 

aspects to the people ; and this was never done. It is ments. 
inconceivable that any Prime Minister, who believed, 
as Mr. Asquith does, in democratic principles, would 
have left the country uneducated, and his own 
colleagues unenlightened, on a matter of so great 
importance, had his own mind been clearly made up. 

When the crisis occurred in July 1914, when 
Germany proceeded to action, when events took place 
which for years past had been foretold and discussed 
very fully on both sides of the North Sea, it was as 
if a bolt had fallen from the blue. Uncertainty was 
apparent in all quarters. The very thing which had 
been so often talked of had happened. Germany 
was collecting her armies and preparing to crush 
France. The neutrality of Belgium was threatened. 
Yet up to, and on, Sunday, August 2, there was 
doubt and hesitation in the Cabinet, and until some 
days later, also in Parliament and the country. 1 

When, finally, it was decided to declare war, the 
course of action which that step required still appears 
to have remained obscure to our rulers. Until the 
Thursday following it was not decided to send the 
Expeditionary Force abroad. Then, out of timidity, 
only two-thirds of it were sent. 2 Transport arrange- 
ments which were all ready for moving the whole 
force had to be hastily readjusted. The delay was 

1 This is obvious from the White Paper without seeking further evidence 
in the ministerial press or elsewhere. 

2 Of the six infantry divisions included in the Expeditionary Force only 
four were sent in the first instance ; a fifth arrived about August 24 ; a 
sixth about mid-September. 



236 THE SPIRIT OF BRITISH POLICY 

Pabt hi. not less injurious than the parsimony ; and the com- 
Chapter bination of the two nearly proved fatal. 

'_ If the minds of the people and their leaders were 

Policy and not prepared for what happened, if in the moral 
ments. sense there was unreadiness ; still more inadequate 
were all preparations of the material kind — not only 
the actual numbers of our Army, but also the whole 
system for providing expansion, training, equipment, 
and munitions. It is asking too much of us to 
believe that events could have happened as they did 
in England during the fortnight which followed the 
presentation of the Austrian Ultimatum to Servia, 
had the Committee of Imperial Defence and its 
distinguished president taken pains beforehand to 
envisage clearly the conditions and consequences 
involved in their policy of ' Security.' 

As regards naval preparations, things were better 
indeed than might have been expected, considering 
the vagueness of ideas in the matter of policy. We 
were safeguarded here by tradition, and the general 
idea of direction had been nearly sufficient. There 
was always trouble, but not as a rule serious trouble, 
in establishing the case for increases necessary to 
keep ahead of German efforts. There had been 
pinchings and parings — especially in the matter of 
fast cruisers, for lack of which, when war broke out, 
we suffered heavy losses — but except in one instance — 
the abandonment of the Cawdor programme — these 
had not touched our security at any vital point. 

Thanks largely to Mr. Stead, but also to states- 
men of both parties, and to a succession of Naval 
Lords who did not hesitate, when occasion required 
it, to risk their careers (as faithful servants ever will) 
rather than certify safety where they saw danger — 



THE NAVAL POSITION 237 

thanks, perhaps, most of all to a popular instinct, Part hi. 
deeply implanted in the British mind, which had Chapter 
grasped the need for supremacy at sea — our naval 
preparations, upon the whole, had kept abreast of Polic y and 
our policy for nearly thirty years. meats. 

As regards the Army, however, it was entirely 
different. There had been no intelligent effort to 
keep our military strength abreast of our policy ; 
and as, in many instances, it would have been too 
bitter a humiliation to keep our policy within the 
limits of our military strength, the course actually 
pursued can only be described fitly as a game of 
bluff. 

There had never been anything approaching 
agreement with regard to the functions which the 
Army was expected to perform. Not only did 
political parties differ one from another upon this 
primary and fundamental question, but hardly two 
succeeding War Ministers had viewed it in the same 
light. There had been schemes of a bewildering 
variety ; but as the final purpose for which soldiers 
existed had never yet been frankly laid down and 
accepted, each of these plans in turn had been dis- 
credited by attacks, which called in question the very 
basis of the proposed reformation. 

While naval policy had been framed and carried 
out in accordance with certain acknowledged necessi- 
ties of national existence, military policy had been 
alternately expanded and deflated in order to assuage 
the anxieties, while conforming to the prejudices — 
real or supposed — of the British public. In the case 
of the fleet, we had very fortunately arrived, more 
than a generation ago, at the point where it was a 
question of what the country needed ; as regards the 



238 THE SPIRIT OF BRITISH POLICY 

Part hi. Army, it was still a question of what the country 
Chapter would stand. But how could even a politician know 

1 what the country would stand until the full case had 

Policy and been laid before the country ? How was it that while 
ments. Ministers of both parties had the courage to put the 
issue more or less nakedly in the matter of ships, 
they grew timid as soon as the discussion turned on 
army corps ? If the needs of the Commonwealth 
were to be the touchstone in the one case, why not 
also in the other ? The country will stand a great 
deal more than the politicians think ; and it will stand 
almost anything better than vacillation, evasion, 
and untruth. In army matters, unfortunately, it 
has had experience of little else since the battle of 
Waterloo. 

Mathematicians, metaphysicians, and economists 
have a fondness for what is termed ' an assumption.' 
They take for granted something which it would be 
inconvenient or impossible to prove, and thereupon 
proceed to build upon it a fabric which compels 
admiration in a less or greater degree, by reason of 
its logical consistency. There is no great harm in 
this method so long as the conclusions, which are 
drawn from the airy calculations of the study, are 
confined to the peaceful region of their birth ; but 
so soon as they begin to sally forth into the harsh 
world of men and affairs, they are apt to break at 
once into shivers. When the statesman makes an 
assumption he does so at his peril ; or, perhaps, to 
speak more correctly, at the peril of his country. 
For if it be a false assumption the facts will 
speedily find it out, and disasters will inevitably 
ensue. 

Our Governments, Tory and Radical alike, have 



TWO INCORRECT ASSUMPTIONS 239 

acted in recent times as if the British Army were PartIii. 
what their policy required it to be — something, that Chapter 
is, entirely different from what it really was. Judg- j^ 
ing by its procedure, the Foreign Office would appear Policy and 
to have made the singularly bold assumption that, menta. 
in a military comparison with other nations, Britain 
was still in much the same relative position as in the 
days of Napoleon. Sustained by this tenacious but 
fantastic tradition, Ministers have not infrequently 
engaged in policies which wiser men would have 
avoided. They have uttered protests, warnings, 
threats which have gone unheeded. They have 
presumed to say what would and would not be 
tolerated in certain spheres ; but having Dothing 
better behind their despatches than a mere assump- 
tion which did not correspond with the facts, they 
have been compelled to endure rebuffs and humilia- 
tions. As they had not the prudence to cut their 
coat according to their cloth, it was only natural 
that occasionally they should have had to appear 
before the world in a somewhat ridiculous guise. 

British statesmen for nearly half a century had 
persisted in acting upon two most dangerous assump- 
tions. They had assumed that one branch of the 
national armaments conformed to their policy, when 
in fact it did not. And they had assumed also, 
which is equally fatal, that policy, if only it be virtu- 
ous and unaggressive, is in some mysterious way 
self-supporting, and does not need to depend on 
armaments at all. 

The military preparations of Britain were in- 
adequate to maintain the policy of Security, which 
British Governments had nevertheless been engaged 
in pursuing for many years prior to the outbreak of 



240 THE SPIRIT OF BRITISH POLICY 

part hi. the present war. 1 On the other hand, the abandon- 
Chapter ment of this policy was incompatible with the con- 
IIL tinuance of 'the Empire. We could not hope to hold 
Policy and our scattered Dependencies and to keep our Dominions 
mmts. safe against encroachments unless we were prepared 
to incur the necessary sacrifices. 

1 " Our Army, as a belligerent factor in European politics, is almost a 
' negligible quantity. This Empire is at all times practically defenceless 
' beyond its first line. Such an Empire invites war. Its assumed security 
' amid the armaments of Europe, and now of Asia, is insolent and provoca- 
' tive " (Lord Roberts, October 22, 1912). Nothing indeed is more insolent 
and provocative, or more likely to lead to a breach of the peace, than 
undefended riches among armed men. 



CHAPTER IV 

THE BALANCE OF POWER 

During the whole period of rather more than part hi. 
thirteen years — which has been referred to in previous Chapter 

pages as the post- Victorian epoch, and which ex- '_ 

tended roughly from January 1901, when Queen The 

TT- • t i t i -I it i balance of 

Victoria died, to July 1914, when war was declared — power. 
the British Army remained inadequate for the purpose 
of upholding that policy which British statesmen of 
both parties, and the British people, both at home 
and in the Dominions, were engaged in pursuing — 
whether they knew it or not — and were bound to 
pursue, unless they were prepared to sacrifice their 
independence. 

The aim of that policy was the security of the 
whole empire. This much at any rate was readily 
conceded on all hands. It was not enough, however, 
that we approved the general aim of British policy. 
A broad but clear conception of the means by which 
our Government hoped to maintain this policy, and 
the sacrifices which the country would have to make 
in order to support this policy, was no less necessary. 
So soon, however, as we began to ask for further 
particulars, we found ourselves in the region of acute 
controversy. ' Security ' was a convenient political 
formula, which could be accepted as readily by the 

241 R 



242 THE SPIRIT OF BRITISH POLICY 

Part hi. man who placed his trust in international law, as by his 
Chapter neighbour who believed in battle fleets and army corps. 
' In considering this question of security we could 

The not disregard Europe, for Europe was still the storm- 

power, centre of the world. We could not afford to turn a 
blind eye towards the ambitions and anxieties of 
the great continental Powers. We were bound to 
take into account not only their visions but their 
nightmares. We could not remain indifferent to 
their groupings and alliances, or to the strength and 
dispositions of their armaments. 

That the United Kingdom was a pair of islands 
lying on the western edge of Europe, and that the 
rest of the British Empire was remote, and unwilling 
to be interested in the rivalries of the Teuton, Slav, 
and Latin races, did not affect the matter in the least. 
Nowadays no habitable corner of the earth is really 
remote ; and as for willingness or unwillingness to be 
interested, that had nothing at all to do with the 
question. For it was clear that any Power, which 
succeeded in possessing itself of the suzerainty of 
Europe, could redraw the map of the world at its 
pleasure, and blow the Monroe Doctrine, no less 
than the British Empire, sky-high. 

Looking across thousands of leagues of ocean, it 
was difficult for the Dominions and the United 
States to understand how their fortunes, and the 
ultimate fate of their cherished institutions, could 
possibly be affected by the turmoil and jealousies of 
— what appeared in their eyes to be — a number of 
reactionary despotisms and chauvinistic democracies. 
Even the hundred and twenty leagues which separate 
Hull from Emden, or the seven which divide Dover 
from Calais, were enough to convince many people 



GERMAN AIMS 243 

in the United Kingdom that we could safely allow part hi. 
Europe to ' stew in her own juice.' But unfor- Chapter 

tunately for this theory, unless a great continental 1 

struggle ended like the battle of the Kilkenny cats, the J^ e 
outside world was likely to find itself in an awkward power. 
predicament, when the conqueror chose to speak with 
it in the gates, at a time of his own choosing. 

British policy since 1901 had tended, with ever 
increasing self -consciousness, towards the definite aim 
of preventing Germany from acquiring the suzerainty 
of Western Europe. It was obvious that German 
predominance, if secured, must ultimately force the 
other continental nations, either into a German 
alliance, or into a neutrality favourable to German 
interests. German policy would then inevitably 
be directed towards encroachments upon British 
possessions. Germany had already boldly pro- 
claimed her ambitions overseas. Moreover, she 
would find it pleasanter to compensate, and soothe 
the susceptibilities of those nations whom she had 
overcome in diplomacy or war, and to reward their 
subsequent services as allies and friendly neutrals, 
by paying them out of our property rather than out 
of her own. For this reason, if for no other, we were 
deeply concerned that Germany should not dominate 
Europe if we could help it. 

During this period, on the other hand, Germany 
appeared to be setting herself more and more seriously 
to acquire this domination. Each succeeding year 
her writers expressed themselves in terms of greater 
candour and confidence. Her armaments were follow- 
ing her policy. The rapid creation of a fleet — the 
counterpart of the greatest army in Europe — and 
the recent additions to the striking power of her 



244 THE SPIRIT OF BRITISH POLICY 

part hi. already enormous army could have no other object. 

Chapter Certainly from 1909 onwards, it was impossible to 

regard German preparations as anything else than a 

The challenge, direct or indirect, to the security of the 

balance of _^ . . . %.. 

power. British Empire. 

Consequently the direction of British policy 
returned, gradually, unavowedly, but with certainty, 
to its old lines, and became once more concerned with 
the maintenance of the Balance of Power as the prime 
necessity. The means adopted were the Triple 
Entente between Britain, France, and Russia. The 
object of this understanding was to resist the anti- 
cipated aggressions of the Triple Alliance, wherein 
Germany was the predominant partner. 

The tendency of phrases, as they grow old, is to 
turn into totems, for and against which political 
parties, and even great nations, fight unreasoningly. 
But before we either yield our allegiance to any of 
these venerable formulas, or decide to throw it out 
on the scrap-heap, there are advantages in looking to 
see whether or not there is some underlying meaning 
which may be worth attending to. It occasionally 
happens that circumstances have changed so much 
since the original idea was first crystallised in words, 
that the old saying contains no value or reality what- 
soever for the present generation. More often, how- 
ever, there is something of permanent importance 
behind, if only we can succeed in tearing of! the husk 
of prejudice in which it has become encased. So, 
according to Disraeli, " the divine right of Kings 
1 may have been a plea for feeble tyrants, but the 
* divine right of government is the keystone of human 
' progress." For many years the phrase British 
interests, which used to figure so largely in speeches 



DERELICT MAXIMS 245 

and leading articles, has dropped out of use, because Part in. 
it had come to be associated unfavourably with bond- Chapter 

holders' dividends. The fact that it also implied '_ 

national honour and prestige, the performance of ^ 
duties and the burden of responsibilities was for- power, 
gotten. Even the doctrine of laissez faire, which 
politicians of all parties have lately agreed to abjure 
and contemn, has, as regards industrial affairs, a large 
kernel of practical wisdom and sound policy hidden 
away in it. But of all these derelict maxims, that 
which until quite recently, appeared to be suffering 
from the greatest neglect, was the need for maintain- 
ing the Balance of Power in Europe. For close on 
two generations it had played no overt part in public 
controversy, except when some Tory matador pro- 
duced it defiantly as a red rag to infuriate the 
Radical bull. 

If this policy of the maintenance of the Balance 
of Power has been little heard of since Waterloo, the 
reason is that since then, until quite recently, the 
Balance of Power has never appeared to be seriously 
threatened. 1 And because the policy of maintaining 
this balance was in abeyance, many people have 
come to believe that it was discredited. Because 
it was not visibly and actively in use it was supposed 
to have become entirely useless. 

This policy can never become useless. It must 
inevitably come into play, so soon as any Power 
appears to be aiming at the mastery of the continent. 
It will ever remain a matter of life or death, to the 
United Kingdom and to the British Empire, that 
no continental state shall be allowed to obtain 

1 It can hardly be overlooked, however, that this principle, rightly or 
wrongly interpreted, had something to do with the Crimean War (1854^56) 
and with the British attitude at the Congress of Berlin (1878). 



246 THE SPIRIT OF BRITISH POLICY 

paet hi. command, directly or indirectly, of the resources, 
Chapter diplomacy, and armaments of Europe. 

; '_ In the sixteenth century we fought Philip of 

The Spain to prevent him from acquiring European 

balance of 

power. predominance. In the seventeenth, eighteenth, and 
nineteenth centuries we fought Louis XIV., Louis 
XV., and Napoleon for the same reason. In order to 
preserve the balance of power, and with it our own 
security, it was our interest under Elizabeth to pre- 
vent the Netherlands from being crushed by Spain. 
Under later monarchs it was our interest to prevent 
the Netherlands, the lesser German States, Prussia, 
Austria, and finally the whole of Europe from being 
crushed by France. And we can as ill afford to-day 
to allow France to be crushed by Germany, or Holland 
and Belgium to fall into her power. The wheel has 
come round full circle, but the essential British interest 
remains constant. 

The wheel is always turning, sometimes slowly, 
sometimes with startling swiftness. Years hence 
the present alliances will probably be discarded. It 
may be that some day the danger of a European 
predominance will appear from a different quarter — 
from one of our present allies, or from some upstart 
state which may rise to power with an even greater 
rapidity than the Electorate of Brandenburg. Or it 
may be that before long the New World, in fact as well 
as phrase, may have come in to redress the balance of 
the Old. We cannot say, because we cannot foresee 
what the future holds in store. But from the opening 
of the present century, the immediate danger came 
from Germany, who hardly troubled to conceal the 
fact that she was aiming at predominance by mastery 
of the Low Countries and by crushing France. 



CONDITIONS OF BRITISH FREEDOM 247 

That this danger was from time to time regarded pakt hi. 
seriously by a section of the British Cabinet, we Chapter 

know from their own statements both before war '_ 

broke out and subsequently. It was no chimera The 
confined to the imaginations of irresponsible and p0 wer. 
panic-stricken writers. In sober truth the balance 
of power in Europe was in as much danger, and the 
maintenance of it had become as supreme a British 
interest, under a Liberal government at the begin- 
ning of the twentieth century, as it ever was under 
a Whig government at the close of the seventeenth 
and opening of the eighteenth. 

The stealthy return of this doctrine into the region 
of practical politics was not due to the prejudices of 
the party which happened to be in power. Quite the 
contrary. Most Liberals distrusted the phrase. The 
whole mass of the Radicals abhorred it. The idea 
which lay under and behind the phrase was never- 
theless irresistible, because it arose out of the facts. 
Had a Socialist Government held office, this policy 
must equally have imposed itself and been accepted 
with a good or ill grace, for the simple reason that, 
unless the balance of power is maintained in Europe, 
there can be no security for British freedom, under 
which we mean, with God's help, to work out our 
own problems in our own way. 

English statesmen had adopted this policy in fact, 
if unavowedly — perhaps even to some extent un- 
consciously — when they first entered into, and after- 
wards confirmed, the Triple Entente. And having 
once entered into the Triple Entente it was obvious 
that, without risking still graver consequences, we 
could never resume the detached position which we 
occupied before we took that step. It is difficult to 



248 THE SPIRIT OF BRITISH POLICY 

pabt in. believe — seeing how the danger of German pre- 
Chapter dominance threatened France and Russia as well as 
1 ' ourselves — that we should not have excited the ill-will 
The of those two countries had we refused to make 

power. common cause by joining the Triple Entente. It 
was obvious, however, to every one that we could not 
afterwards retire from this association without in- 
curring their hostility. If we had withdrawn we 
should have been left, not merely without a friend in 
Europe, but with all the chief Powers in Europe our 
enemies — ready upon the first favourable occasion to 
combine against us. 

There is only one precedent in our history for so 
perilous a situation — when Napoleon forced Europe 
into a combination against us in 1806. And this 
precedent, though it then threatened our Empire 
with grave dangers, did not threaten it with dangers 
comparable in gravity with those which menaced us 
a century later. 

The consequences of breaking away from the 
Triple Entente were sufficiently plain. " We may 
build ships against one nation, or even against a 
combination of nations. But we cannot build ships 
against half Europe. If Western Europe, with all 
its ports, its harbours, its arsenals, and its resources, 
was to fall under the domination of a single will, no 
effort of ours would be sufficient to retain the 
command of the sea. It is a balance of power 
on the continent, which alone makes it possible 
for us to retain it. Thus the maintenance of the 
balance of power is vital to our superiority at sea, 
which again is vital to the security of the British 
Empire." 1 

1 Viscount Milner in the United Service Magazine, January 1912. 



DEFENCE AND INVASION 249 

Security in the widest sense was the ultimate Part hi. 
end of our policy — security of mind, security from Chapter 

periodic panic, as well as actual military security. '_ 

Looked at more closely, the immediate end was Tlie 
defence — the defence of the British Empire and of power. 
the United Kingdom. 

In the existing condition of the world a policy of 
' splendid isolation ' was no longer possible. Con- 
ditions with which we are familiar in commercial 
affairs, had presented themselves in the political 
sphere, and co-operation on a large scale had become 
necessary in order to avoid bankruptcy. England 
had entered into the Triple Entente because her 
statesmen realised, clearly or vaguely, that by doing 
so we should be better able to defend our existence, 
and for no other reason. 

After 1911 it must have been obvious to most 
people who considered the matter carefully that in 
certain events the Triple Entente would become an 
alliance. It is the interest as well as the duty of 
allies to stand by one another from first to last, and 
act together in the manner most likely to result in 
victory for the alliance. What then was the manner 
of co-operation most likely to result in victory for that 
alliance which lay dormant under the Triple Entente ? 

But first of all, to clear away one obscurity — 
Invasion was not our problem ; Defence was our 
problem ; for the greater included the less. 

The word ' defence ' is apt to carry different 
meanings to different minds. The best defence of 
England and British interests, at any given time, 
may or may not consist in keeping our main army 
in the United Kingdom and waiting to be attacked 
here. It all depends upon the special circumstances 



250 THE SPIRIT OF BRITISH POLICY 

part hi. of each case. The final decision must be governed 
Chapter by one consideration, and one only — how to strike 

'_ the speediest, heaviest, and most disabling blow at 

The the aggressor. If by keeping our army in England 

power. and endeavouring to lure the enemy into our toils, 
that end is most likely to be accomplished, then it is 
obviously best to keep our army here. If by sending 
it into the north of France to combine with the 
French the supreme military object has a superior 
chance of being achieved, then it is best to send it 
into the north of France. 

A defensive war cannot be denned and circum- 
scribed as a war to drive out invaders, or even to 
prevent the landing of invaders. The best way to 
defend your castle may be to man the walls, to fall 
upon the enemy at the ford, to harry his lands, or 
even to attack him in his castle. There is no fixed 
rule. The circumstances in each case make the rule. 
A war is not less a defensive war if you strike at 
your enemy in his own territory, or if you come to 
the aid of your ally, whose territory has been invaded 
or is threatened. In the circumstances which pre- 
vailed for a considerable number of years prior to 
the outbreak of the present war, it gradually became 
more and more obvious, that our soundest defence 
would be joint action with France upon her north- 
eastern frontier. For there, beyond any doubt, 
would Germany's supreme effort be made against 
the Triple Entente. If the attack failed at that 
point, it would be the heaviest and most disabling 
blow which our enemy could suffer. If, on the other 
hand, it succeeded, France and England would have 
to continue the struggle on terms immensely less 
favourable. 



CO-OPERATION WITH FRANCE 251 

This opinion was not by any means unanimously part hi. 
or clearly held ; but during the summer of 1911 and Chapter 

subsequently, it was undoubtedly the hypothesis 1 

upon which those members of our Government relied, The 
who were chiefly responsible for the conduct ot power. 
foreign affairs. Unfortunately Parliament and the 
country had never accepted either the policy or its 
consequences ; they had never been asked to accept 
either the one or the other; nor had they been 
educated with a view to their acceptance. 

At that time the error was exceedingly prevalent, 
that it is a more comfortable business fighting in 
your own country than in somebody else's. From 
this it followed that it would be folly to engage in 
what were termed disapprovingly ' foreign adven- 
tures,' and that we should be wise to await attack 
behind our own shores. Recent events have wrought 
such a complete and rapid conversion from this 
heresy, that it is no longer worth while wasting words 
in exposing it. It is necessary, however, to recall 
how influential this view of the matter was, not only 
up to the declaration of war, but even for some time 
afterwards. 

As to the precise form of co-operation between 
the members of the Triple Entente in case of war, 
there could be no great mystery. It was obvious to 
any one who paid attention to what happened during 
the summer and autumn of 1.911, that in the event of 
Germany attacking France over the Agadir dispute, 
we had let it be understood and expected, that we 
should send our Expeditionary Force across the 
Channel to co-operate with the French army on the 
north-eastern frontier. 



CHAPTER V 

THE MILITARY SITUATION 
(August 1911) 

part hi. The full gravity of the Agadir incident, though 
Chapter apparent to other nations, was never realised by the 

1 people of this country. The crisis arose suddenly in 

Tlie July 1911. Six weeks later it had subsided ; but it 

military ^ . * 

situation, was not until well on in the autumn that its meanings 
were grasped, even by that comparatively small 
section of the public who interest themselves in 
problems of defence and foreign affairs. From 
October onwards, however, an increasing number 
began to awake to the fact, that war had only been 
avoided by inches, and to consider seriously — many 
of them for the first time in their lives — what would 
have happened if England had become involved in 
a European conflict. 

From various official statements, and from dis- 
cussions which from time to time had taken place in 
Parliament, it was understood that our 'Expeditionary 
Force ' consisted of six infantry divisions, a cavalry 
division, and army troops ; * also that the national 
resources permitted of this force being kept up to 
full strength for a period of at least six months, after 
making all reasonable deductions for the wastage of 

1 In all about 160,000 men, of whom some 25,000 were non-combatants. 

252 



THE EXPEDITIONARY FORCE 253 

war. Was this enough ? Enough for what ? . . . p^ 1 iil 
To uphold British policy ; to preserve Imperial Chapter 
security ; to enable the Triple Entente to maintain — '- 
the balance of power in Europe. These were vague ^ e it 
phrases ; what did they actually amount to ? . . . situation. 
The adequacy or inadequacy of such an army as this 
for doing what was required of it — for securing speedy 
victory in event of war — or still better for preserving 
peace by the menace which it opposed to German 
schemes of aggression — can only be tested by con- 
sidering the broad facts with regard to numbers, 
efficiency, and readiness of all the armies which would 
be engaged directly, or indirectly, in a European 
struggle. 

War, however, had been avoided in 1911, and not 
a few people were therefore convinced that the 
menace of the available British army, together with 
the other consequences to be apprehended from the 
participation of this country, had been sufficient to 
deter Germany from pursuing her schemes of aggres- 
sion, if indeed she had actually harboured any notions 
of the kind. But others, not altogether satisfied 
with this explanation and conclusion, were inclined 
to press their enquiries somewhat further. Sup- 
posing war had actually been declared, would the 
British force have been sufficient — acting in con- 
junction with the French army — to repel a German 
invasion of France and Belgium, to hurl back the 
aggressors and overwhelm them in defeat ? Would 
it have been sufficient to accomplish the more modest 
aim of holding the enemy at his own frontiers, or 
even — supposing that by a swift surprise he had been 
able to overrun Belgium — at any rate to keep him 
out of France ? 



254 THE SPIRIT OF BRITISH POLICY 

Pakt hi. When people proceeded to seek for answers to 

Chapter these questions, as many did during the year 1912, 

v ~ they speedily discovered that, in considerations of 

The this sort, the governing factor is numbers — the 

StuatTon. numbers of the opposing forces available at the 

outbreak of war and in the period immediately 

following. The tremendous power of national spirit 

must needs be left out of such calculations as a thing 

immeasurable, imponderable, and uncertain. It was 

also unsafe to assume that the courage, intelligence, 

efficiency, armament, transport, equipment, supplies, 

and leadership of the German and Austrian armies 

would be in any degree inferior to those of the Triple 

Entente. Certain things had to be allowed for in a 

rough and ready way ; x but the main enquiry was 

forced to concern itself with numerical strength. 

There was not room for much disagreement upon 
the broad facts of the military situation, among 
soldiers and civilians who, from 1911 onwards, gave 
themselves to the study of this subject at the available 
sources of information ; and their estimates have 
been confirmed, in the main, by what has happened 
since war began. The Intelligence departments of 
London, Paris, and Petrograd— with much ampler 
means of knowledge at their disposal — can have 
arrived at no other conclusions. What the English 
War Office knew, the Committee of Imperial Defence 
likewise knew ; and the leading members of the 
Cabinet, if not the whole Government, must be 
presumed to have been equally well informed. 

It was assumed in these calculations, that in case 
of tension between the Triple Entente and the Triple 

1 Such, for instance, as the fact that the time-table of German mobilisa- 
tion appeared to be somewhat more rapid than that of the French, and 
much more so than that of the Russians. 



NEUTRALITY OF ITALY 255 

Alliance, the latter would not be able — in the first part hi. 
instance at all events — to bring its full strength into Chapter 
the struggle. For unless Germany and Austria _^i_ 
managed their diplomacy before the outbreak of The 
hostilities with incomparable skill, it seemed im- situation, 
probable that the Italian people would consent to 
engage in a costly, and perhaps ruinous, war — a 
war against France, with whom they had no quarrel ; 
against England, towards whom they had long 
cherished feelings of friendship ; on behalf of the 
Habsburg Empire, which they still regarded — and 
not altogether unreasonably — with suspicion and 
enmity. 

But although the neutrality of Italy might be 
regarded as a likelihood at the opening of the war, 
it could not be reckoned on with any certainty as a 
permanent condition. For as no one can forecast 
the course of a campaign, so no one can feel secure 
that the unexpected may not happen at any moment. 
The consequences of a defeat in this quarter or in 
that, may offer too great temptations to the cupidity 
of onlookers ; while diplomacy, though it may have 
bungled in the beginning, is sure to have many 
opportunities of recovering its influence as the situa- 
tion develops. Consequently, unless and until Italy 
actually joined in the struggle on the side of the 
Triple Entente, a considerable section of the French 
army would, in common prudence, have to be left 
on guard upon the Savoy frontier. 

In a war brought on by the aggressive designs of 
Germany, the only nations whose participation could 
be reckoned on with certainty — and this only suppos- 
ing that Britain stood firmly by the policy upon 
which her Government had embarked — were Russia, 



256 THE SPIRIT OF BRITISH POLICY 

Pakt in. France, and ourselves on the one side, Germany and 

Chapter Austria-Hungary on the other. 
v ' It would certainly be necessary for Germany, as 

Tte well as Austria, to provide troops for coast defences, 

StuaS. and also for the frontiers of neutral countries, which 
might have the temptation, in certain circumstances, to 
deneutralise themselves at an inconvenient moment, 
if they were left unwatched. On the north and 
west were Denmark, Holland, and Belgium, each 
of which had a small field army, besides garrison 
and fortress troops which might be turned to more 
active account upon an emergency. On the south 
and east were Montenegro, Servia, and Roumania, 
whose military resources were on a considerable scale, 
and whose neutrality was not a thing altogether to 
be counted on, even before the Balkan war * had 
lowered the prestige of Turkey. In addition there 
was Italy, who although a pledged ally in a defensive 
war was not likely, for that reason, to consider 
herself bound to neutrality, benevolent or other- 
wise, if in her judgment, the particular contingencies 
which called for her support had not arisen at the 
outset. 

After taking such precautions as seemed prudent 
under these heads, Germany would then be obliged 
to detach for service, in co-operation with the 
Austrians in Poland, and along the whole eastern 
border, a sufficient number of army corps to secure 
substantial superiority over the maximum forces 
which Russia, hampered by an inadequate railway 
system and various military considerations, 2 could 

1 The first Balkan war broke out in the autumn of 1912. 

2 Russia had anxieties of her own with regard to the intentions of 
Roumania, of Turkey in Persia and the Caucasus, and of China and Japan 
in the Far East. 



SUPERIORITY OF GERMAN NUMBERS 257 

be expected to bring into the field and maintain part hi. 

there during the first few months of the war. Chapter 

v. 

It was reckoned 1 after taking all these things into The 
account, that Germany would have available, for the situation. 
invasion of France, an army consisting of some ninety 
divisions — roughly, rather more than a million and 
three-quarters of men — and that she could maintain 
this force at its full strength — repairing the wastage of 
war out of her ample reserves — for a period of at least 
six months. It was assumed that the Kaiser, relying 
upon the much slower mobilisation of Russia, would 
undoubtedly decide to use the whole of this huge 
force in the west, in the hope that before pressure 
could begin to make itself felt in the east, France 
would either have been crushed, as she was in 1870, 
or so much mangled that it would be possible to send 
reinforcements of an overwhelming character to 
make victory secure in Poland. 

Against this German force of 1,800,000, France, 
according to the best information available, could 
put into the field and maintain at full strength for 
a similar period of six months about 1,300,000 men. 
But this was the utmost that could be expected of 
the French, and the initial deficiency of 500,000 
men was very serious. It precluded all reasonable 
hope on their part of being able to take the offensive, 
to which form of warfare the genius of the people 
was most adapted. It would compel them to remain 
on the defensive, for which it was believed at that 

1 These calculations were worked out in various ways, but the net 
results arrived at were always substantially the game. In view of the fact 
that the main conclusions have been amply proved by the results of the 
present war, it does not seem worth while to weary the reader with more 
sums in arithmetic than are absolutely necessary. 

S 



258 THE SPIRIT OF BRITISH POLICY 

part in. time — though wrongly, as events have proved — that 
Chapter they were ill suited by temperament as well as 

'_ tradition. 

Tne If England joined in the war by land as well as 

situation, sea the numerical deficiency would be reduced to 
340,000 on the arrival of our Expeditionary Force. 
In this connection, as well as for other reasons, the 
attitude of Holland and Belgium, and that of Ger- 
many with respect to these two countries, were 
clearly matters of high importance. 

Holland had a field army of four divisions, and 
her interests could be summed up in the words, 
' preservation of independence.' She would naturally 
wish to avoid being actively embroiled in the war on 
one side or the other ; and, fortunately for her, she 
had every reason to believe that her neutrality would 
not be disturbed or questioned. Her territories lay 
to one side of the probable campaign area, and 
moreover, whatever might be the ulterior designs 
of Germany with regard to western expansion, it was 
obvious that her immediate interests must necessarily 
lie in Dutch neutrality, which would be infinitely 
more useful to her than a Dutch alliance. For 
Holland holds the mouths of the Scheldt and Rhine, 
and so long as she remained neutral, it was anticipated 
that imports and exports would readily find their 
way into and out of Germany. This advantage 
would cease were Britain to establish a blockade of 
these inlets, as she would certainly do if they belonged 
to a hostile Power. 

In certain respects Belgium was in the same case 
as Holland. She likewise had a field army of four 
divisions, and her interests could be summed up in 
the words, ' preservation of independence.' But 



POSITION OF BELGIUM 259 

here all resemblance between the two countries Part ii 

ended. Chapter 

Belgium was not merely the southern portion '_ 

(Holland being the northern) of that Naboth's vine- The 
yard, the possession of which German visionaries had situation. 
proclaimed to be essential to Teutonic world-power. 
Belgium was more even than this. If the permanent 
possession of Belgian territory was a political object 
in the future, temporary occupation was no less a 
military necessity of the present. For in order 
that Germany might benefit in full measure by her 
numerical superiority, Belgian roads and railways 
were required, along which to transport her troops, 
and Belgian hills and plains on which to deploy 
them. If Germany were confined to the use of her 
own frontiers she would not only lose in swiftness of 
attack, but her legions would be piled up, one behind 
another, like a crowd coming out of a theatre. She 
needed space on which to spread out her superior 
numbers in order that her superior numbers might 
make certain of victory. 

There was an idea at this time (1911-12) that 
Germany would be satisfied to keep to the south-east 
of the fortified fine of the Meuse — moving through 
Luxemburg and the mountains of the Ardennes — and 
that if Belgium saw fit to yield, under protest, to 
force majeure, the northern region, containing the 
great plain of Flanders and all cities of importance, 
would be left inviolate. This theory was probably 
erroneous, for the reason that — as the event has 
shown — Germany required a greater space and more 
favourable ground, than would have been provided 
under this arrangement, in order to bring her great 
superiority to bear. 



260 THE SPIRIT OF BRITISH POLICY 

part hi. With the French on the other hand there was no 

Chapter similar advantage to be gained by the violation of 
Vj Belgian neutrality. From their point of view the 

The shorter the battle front could be kept the better. 

StuaS. If Belgium chose to range herself by the side of France 
as a willing ally it would undoubtedly be a great 
gain ; but if she chose to remain neutral the French 
could have no object in invading or occupying her 
territories. 

It was assumed, and no doubt rightly, that, like 
Holland, Belgium would prefer to remain neutral — 
leaving the question of future absorption to take care 
of itself — provided she could do this without enduring 
the humiliation of allowing foreign armies to violate 
her soil. For she knew that, in the event of a French 
victory, her independence would remain assured ; 
whereas, if the Germans were successful, she would 
have avoided awakening their hostility and giving 
them an excuse for annexation. But even if Belgium, 
under gross provocation, were forced to take sides 
against Germany, the deficit in numbers on the side 
of the Triple Entente would only be reduced by some 
eighty or a hundred thousand men. The deficit 
would still stand, roughly, at a quarter of a million 
men. 

In view of the foregoing considerations it was 
clearly absurd to think that our own small force was 
at all adequate, in a military sense, to deter Germany 
from engaging in a war of aggression. Had we been 
able, during the years 1912 to 1914, to see into the 
minds of the German General Staff we should prob- 
ably have realised that this inadequacy was even 
greater than it appeared. We should then have 



INADEQUACY OF BKITISH ARMY 261 

known that the numbers of the Kaiser's striking part hi. 
force had been carefully understated ; and that the Chapter 
amount of preparations in the way of material had 
been hidden away with an equal industry. We The 
should also have learned, that the sending of our StuaX. 
army abroad was viewed with scepticism in German 
military circles, as an event hardly likely to occur. 
But even if our Expeditionary Force did go, it was 
altogether inadequate to redress the adverse balance, 
still more inadequate to bring an immediate victory 
within the range of practical possibility. It was 
inadequate to hold back the premeditated invasion, 
either at the German frontier, or even at the French 
frontier. It was inadequate to make Belgian resist- 
ance effective, even if that nation should determine 
to throw in its lot with the Triple Entente. 

As a matter of the very simplest arithmetic our 
land forces were inadequate for any of these purposes. 
They were unequal to the task of maintaining the 
balance of power by giving a numerical superiority 
to the armies of the Triple Entente. Our armaments 
therefore did not correspond with our policy. It 
was clear that they would not be able to uphold that 
policy if it were put to the supreme test of war. It 
was impossible to abandon our policy. It was not 
impossible, and it was not even in 1912 too late, 
to have set about strengthening our armaments. 
Nothing of the kind, however, was undertaken by the 
Government, whose spokesmen, official and unofficial, 
employed themselves more congenially in deriding 
and rebuking Lord Roberts for calling attention to the 
danger. 

Of course if it had been possible to place reliance 
upon the statement of the English War Minister, 



262 THE SPIRIT OF BRITISH POLICY 

Part in. made little more than a year before war broke out, 1 

Chapter that every soldier under the voluntary system is 

Y ' worth ten conscripts, we and our Allies would have 

The been in a position of complete security. In that case 

situation, our force of 160,000 would have been the equivalent 

of 1,600,000 Germans, and we should from the first 

have been in a superiority of more than a million 

over our enemies. 

Even if we could have credited the more modest 
assumption of Sir John Simon — made nearly four 
months after war broke out — that one volunteer 
was worth three ' pressed ' men, the opposing forces 
would have been somewhere about an equality. 2 

Unfortunately both these methods of ready-reckon- 
ing were at fault, except for their immediate purpose 
of soothing, or deluding the particular audiences to 
which they were addressed. The words were meaning- 
less and absurd in a military sense ; though conceiv- 
ably they possessed some occult political virtue, and 
might help, for a time at least, to avert the retribution 
which is due to unfaithful stewards. 

Both these distinguished statesmen, as well as 

1 Colonel Seely at Heanor, April 26, 1913. 

2 Sir John Simon (Attorney-General and a Cabinet Minister), at Ashton- 
under-Lyne, November 21, 1914. . . . This speech is instructive reading. 
It is also comforting for the assurance it contains, that if the speaker approved 
of our taking part in this war (as he vowed he did) his audience might rest 
satisfied that it was indeed a righteous war ; seeing that war was a thing which, 
on principle, he (Sir John Simon) very much reprehended. And yet we are 
not wholly convinced and reassured. There is a touch of over-emphasis — as 
if perhaps, after all, the orator needed the support of his own vehemence to 
keep him reminded of the righteousness. The pacifist in war-paint is apt 
to overact the unfamiliar part. One wonders from what sort of British 
officer at the front the Attorney-General had derived the impression that 
' one ' of our own voluntary soldiers — gallant fellows though they are — is 
the equal of ' three ' of the Germans who face him, or of the Frenchmen who 
fight by his side. . . . This speech puts us not a little in mind of Evangelist's 
warning to Christian, with regard to Mr. Legality's fluent promises to relieve 
him of his burden — "There is nothing in all this noise save a design to 
' beguile thee of thy salvation." 



THE THREE PERIODS OF WAR 263 

many of their colleagues and followers, were beset part hi. 
by the error of false opposites. A soldier who has Chapter 
enlisted voluntarily, and another who is a conscript __ 
or ' pressed ' man, have equally to fight their country's The 

• -i -i-ii Tii military 

enemies when they are ordered to do so. In both situation. 
cases the particular war may be against their con- 
sciences and judgments ; and their participation in it 
may therefore be involuntary. 

Of two men — equal in age, strength, training, and 
courage — one of whom believes his cause to be just, 
while the other does not, there can be no doubt that 
the former will fight better than the latter — even though 
the latter was enlisted under the voluntary system 
while the former was a conscript or ' pressed ' man. In 
this sense the superiority of the ' voluntary ' principle 
is incontestable. But is there any evidence to show, 
that either the original soldiers, or the new levies, of the 
German army are risking their lives in this war any 
less willingly than our own countrymen, who went out 
with the Expeditionary Force, or those others who 
have since responded to Lord Kitchener's appeal ? Is 
there any reason to suppose that they are fighting 
any less bravely and intelligently ? * 

Another matter of importance in these calcula- 
tions with regard to the military strength of the 
Triple Entente and the Triple Alliance was the time 
limit. 

There are three periods in war. There is the 
onset of war, where swiftness of action is what tells 
most ; there is the grip of war, where numbers of 

1 Sir John Simon clinched his arithmetical calculation of ' three ' to 
' one,' by stating that ' the Kaiser already knew it ' ; and this reassuring 
statement was received with ' laughter and cheers.' The laughter we can 
understand. 



264 THE SPIEIT OF BRITISH POLICY 

Pakt hi. trained men are what tell most ; and there is the 
Chapter drag of war, when what tells most is the purse. 

Y ' Speaking by the book, it is of course numbers 

The which tell all the way through. At the beginning — 

StuatSn. in the onset — the aim is to hurl superior numbers 
at a vital point — taking the enemy by surprise, 
and thereby disordering his whole plan of campaign — 
very much as you knock a limpet off: a rock, with 
a sharp unexpected blow. 

If this effort fails to settle matters, then we are 
in the grip. Here it is a case of sheer heavy slogging 
of all the available trained troops. The weaker side 
is driven to the defensive. It is found making use of 
every artificial and natural advantage to counteract 
the superiority which threatens it, and which must 
speedily prevail, if only it be superior enough. 

Finally, after a longer or shorter period of in- 
decisive deadlock, the time comes when trained 
troops and material of war accumulated in advance 
begin to run short — when new levies, raised since 
the war broke out, begin to take the field, well or ill 
equipped, well or ill armed, as the case may be. 
When this stage is reached we are in the drag of 
war; and the side which can best afford to feed, 
clothe, and arm its fresh reinforcements stands at 
an enormous advantage. 

In 1870 war was announced on July 15th, and 
formally declared on the 19th. Three weeks later, 
on August 6th, the important battles of Woerth and 
Spicheren were won by the Germans. On September 
2nd, the issue of the war was decided, when the 
Emperor of the French, with his main army, sur- 
rendered at Sedan. Metz fell in the last days of 
October, and Paris on the first day of March in the 



RESULTS OF SUCCESS IN ONSET 265 

following year. In that war the onset settled every- part hi. 
thing. There was no real grip of the opposing Chapter 

forces. The German attack had been so swift, '_ 

vigorous, and successful that France was knocked The 

• i « -, military 

out in the first round. situation. 

The speed with which great armies can be mobilised 
and hurled against one another has not diminished 
in the forty odd years which have elapsed since the 
debdcle. On the contrary, the art of war has been 
largely concerned in the interval with the vital 
question, how to get in the first deadly blow. 

The military view was, that probably not earlier 
than the fifteenth day— certainly not later than the 
twenty-first — a battle would take place which must 
be of the highest importance, and which might quite 
well be decisive. It might make ultimate German 
victory only a matter of time ; or it might only de- 
termine whether the ensuing campaign was to be 
waged on French or German soil — whether there 
was to be a German invasion of France or a Franco- 
British invasion of Germany. Consequently, if our 
Expeditionary Force was to render assistance at the 
critical time, it must reach its position on the frontier 
within a fortnight of the outbreak of war. 

As to the drag of war, the Triple Entente had the 
advantage, if that stage were ever reached. For the 
purses of England, France, and Russia were much 
longer than those of Germany and Austria. It was 
important, however, to remember that there would 
be no hope for us in the drag of war, if Germany 
could deliver a heavy enough blow at the beginning, 
as she did in 1870. 

These were the considerations as to time, which 
presented themselves to students of the military 



266 THE SPIRIT OF BRITISH POLICY 

Paet-iii. situation during the breathing space which followed 
Chapter upon the Agadir crisis. The substantial accuracy of 

'_ this forecast was confirmed by what happened during 

The August and September of last year. In 1914 war 

milits/pv 

situation, was declared by Germany on August 1st. For several 
days before she had been engaged actively in mobilisa- 
tion. Three weeks later three important battles — on 
the road to Metz, at Charleroi, and at Mons 1 — were 
won by the Germans. If it had not been for the 
unexpected obstacle of Liege the last two engagements 
would in all probability have been fought at an even 
earlier date, and in circumstances much more un- 
favourable to the Franco-British forces. But in the 
early days of September, instead of the crushing 
defeat of Sedan, there was the victory of the Marne, 
and the Germans were forced to retreat to entrenched 
positions north of the Aisne. 2 

The onset period was ended; but the issue had 
not been settled as in 1870. France and England had 
not been knocked out in the first round. To this 
extent the supreme German endeavour had miscarried. 
Nevertheless a great advantage had been secured by 
our enemies, inasmuch as it was now apparent that 
the ensuing campaign — the grip of war — would be con- 
tested, not on German soil, but in France and Belgium. 

The value of the assistance which the British 
Navy would be able to render to the cause of the 
Triple Entente was a consideration of the highest 
importance. But while the fleet, if the national con- 
fidence in it were justified, would render invaluable 
assistance to military operations, it was necessary 

1 The battle in Northern Alsace was fought on August 21 and 22. A 
French army was driven back at Charleroi on the 22nd, and the British at 
Mons on the 23rd. 2 September 6-12. 



LIMITATIONS OF SEA POWER 267 

to bear in mind — what Englishmen in recent times pabt in. 
have been very apt to forget — that no success at sea, Chapter 

whether it consisted in the wholesale destruction of 1 

hostile ships, or in an absolute blockade of the enemy's The 

1 e military 

coast, could by itself determine the main issue of a situation. 
European contest of this character. Disaster in a 
land battle could not be compensated for, nor could 
the balance of power be maintained, by any naval 
victory. War would not be brought to an end 
favourable to the Triple Entente, even by a victory 
as complete as that of Trafalgar. It is also well to 
remember that peace came, not after Trafalgar, but 
after Waterloo, nearly ten years later. 

The strange idea that the security of the British 
Empire can be maintained by the Navy alone, seems 
to be derived by a false process of reasoning, from 
the undeniable truth, that the supremacy of our 
Navy is essential to our security. But though it is 
essential — and the first essential — it is not the only 
essential of security. 

An insular Power, largely dependent on sea-borne 
food supplies and raw materials for its industries — a 
Power which governs an empire in the East, which 
has dependencies scattered in every sea, which is 
politically united with immense but sparsely peopled 
dominions in the four quarters of the globe — must 
keep command of the sea. If that supremacy were 
once lost the British Empire, as an empire, would come 
to an end. Its early dissolution would be inevitable. 
Therefore it is true enough to say that if the German 
Alliance — or any other alliance — were to win a de- 
cisive naval victory against Britain, it would end the 
war completely and effectively so far as we were 
concerned. 



268 THE SPIRIT OF BRITISH POLICY 

pabt hi. But the converse is not the case, and for obvious 
Chapter reasons. In a contest with a continental enemy 

1 who conquers on land, while we win victory after 

The victory at sea, the result will not be a settlement in 

situation, our favour, but a drawn issue. And the draw will 
be to his advantage, not our own. For having 
overthrown the balance of power by reason of his 
successful campaign and invasions, he will then be 
free to concentrate his whole energies upon wresting 
away naval supremacy from the British Empire. In 
time the Sea Power which is only a Sea Power will be 
overborne with numbers, and finally worsted by the 
victorious Land Power. For how is it possible to 
fight with one hand against an enemy with two 
hands ? The fleets of Europe which at last must be 
combined against us, if we allow any rival to obtain 
a European predominance, are too heavy odds. 
German preparations alone were already causing 
us grave anxiety nearly three years before the Agadir 
crisis occurred. How then could we hope to build 
against the whole of Europe ? Or even against 
half of Europe, if the other half remained coldly 
neutral ? 



CHAPTER VI 

THE MILITARY SITUATION 

(August 1914) 

Such was the position of affairs at July 1911, partiii. 
as it appeared to the eyes of people who — during the Chapter 

ensuing period — endeavoured to arrive at an under- 1 

standing of the problem without regard to the ™j 
exigencies of party politics. Between that date situation. 
and July 1914, when war broke out, various changes 
took place in the situation. The general effect of 
these changes was adverse to Britain and her allies. 

In 1911 the German estimates provided for 
considerable increases, especially in artillery and 
machine-guns. The peace strength of the Army 
was raised. 

In the following year, 1912, further additions 
were made to the peace strength, and two new 
army corps were formed out of existing units — 
one for the Polish, the other for the French frontier. 
Artillery and machine-guns were very greatly in- 
creased in the ordinary estimates of that year, and 
again in those of 1913. In addition, Germany at 
the same time added a squadron to her fleet in 
the North Sea, by arranging to keep more ships 
permanently in commission. 

269 



270 THE SPIEIT OF BRITISH POLICY 

Paet hi. But early in 1913 it became known, that the 

Chapter German Government was about to introduce an 

VL Army Bill, providing for immense and sensational 

T1 ^ e additions. The sum of £50,000,000 was to be raised 

situation, by loan for initial expenditure. The increased 

cost of upkeep on the proposed new establishment 

would amount to £9,500,000 per annum. Sixty-three 

thousand more recruits were to be taken each year. 

The total peace strength of the Army was to be raised 

by approximately 200,000 men. Nearly four millions 

sterling was to be spent on aircraft, and ten and a 

half on fortifications ; while the war-chest was to be 

raised from six to eighteen millions. Twenty-seven 

thousand additional horses were to be purchased. 

These proposals were timed to take effect the same 
autumn ; so that by the following Midsummer (1914), 
the military strength of Germany would have reaped 
the main benefit which was anticipated from the 
enormous additions. 

It was not in the power of France to increase the 
actual total of her numbers, because for many years 
past she had already taken every man who was 
physically fit for military service. About eighty 
per cent of the young Frenchmen who came each 
year before the revision boards had been enlisted; 
whereas in Germany — up to the passing of the new 
Army Law — considerably less than fifty per cent had 
been required to serve. The German Army as a 
consequence was composed of picked men, while 
the French Army contained a considerable proportion 
who were inferior both in character and physique. 

But in the face of the new German menace France 
had to do the best she could. She had to do it 
alone, for the reason that the British Government 



MILITARY INCREASES 271 

entertained conscientious and insuperable objections part hi. 

to bearing its due share of the burden. Chapter 

. . VI. 
Already, prior to the sensational expansion of Ger- 1 

many in 1913, France had endeavoured to counteract J5f itar 
the current yearly increases in the military estimates situation. 
of her neighbour, by various reorganisations and re- 
groupings of active units, and by improvements cal- 
culated to improve the efficiency of the reserves. But 
when information was forthcoming * as to the nature 
and extent of the developments proposed under the 
German Army Bill of 1913, it was at once realised 
that more drastic measures were essential to national 
safety. 

Before the German projects were officially an- 
nounced, the French Government took the bold step 
of asking the legislature to sanction a lengthening of 
the period of active military service from two years to 
three, and an extension of the age limit of the reserves 
from forty-seven to forty-nine. Power was also taken 
to summon, in case of emergency, the annual con- 
tingent of recruits a year before their due time. 
Increases in artillery, engineers, railways, barrack 
accommodation, and subsidiary services were asked 
for and obtained. The cost of these, when the whole 
sum came to be calculated, was found to amount to 
£32,000,000. 

Apart, therefore, from material preparations of 
one kind and another, Germany was taking steps to 
add 200,000 men to her striking force, and the inten- 
tions of France were approximately the same. In the 

1 Germany took time by the forelock, and began to carry through the 
contemplated programme before disclosing the terms of the Army Bill to 
the legislature. Consequently her intentions were known in a general way 
to every Intelligence department in Europe, long before they were actually 
announced. 



272 THE SPIRIT OF BRITISH POLICY 



VI. 

The 

military 
situation 



Part in. case of Germany, however, the increases of strength 
Chapter would be operative by Midsummer 1914, while with 
France they would not take effect until two years later. 1 

Germany, moreover, was arranging to take 63,000 
more recruits annually. France was unable to obtain 
any more recruits, as she already took all that were 
fit to bear arms. The increase in her striking force 
was made mainly at the expense of her reserves. 
Year by year, therefore, the numerical inferiority of 
France must become more marked. 

Russia meanwhile was proceeding with her pro- 
gramme of military extension and reorganisation 
which had been decided on after the Japanese war. 
A great part of her expenditure was being devoted 
to the improvement of her exceedingly defective 
system of railways and communications, and to the 
fortification of the Gulf of Finland. 

Austria did not remain stationary in military 
preparations any more than her neighbours. Her 
intake of recruits was 181,000 in 1912. It was 
decided to raise it to 206,000 in 1913, and again to 
216,000 in 1914. 

In the British Army, during this critical period, 
there had of course been no increases, but the reverse. 

1 In going through the memoranda upon which this chapter is based, I 
came across a paper written at the end of July 1913 by a retired soldier 
friend, in answer to a request on my part for certain technical information 
as to French and German preparations. On the margin of the document, 
which gives a very full and able analysis, he had added the following post- 
script as an expression of his personal opinion. " N.B. — Most Important : 
' The German Bill takes immediate effect. The French only takes effect 
' in 1916 because (1) the French are not going to retain the class which 
' finishes its service this year with the colours ; (2) comparatively few are fit 
' for enrolment at twenty ; (3) there has been great delay in Parliament . . . 
' A year from now will be the critical time. Germany will have had the full 
' benefit from her Bill, whereas France will have a mass of young recruits 
' still under instruction. The strain on officers will be tremendous in order 
' to knock this mass of raw men into shape." It is rarely that a prophecy 
is fulfilled practically to a day. 



EFFECT OF BALKAN WARS 273 

The Regular Forces, which had been reduced in Part id 
1906 by nine battalions, 1 were in 1914 some eight Chapter 
thousand men under their nominal strength. The 
Territorials, which had never yet reached the figure The 
postulated by their originator, were at this date situation. 
about 47,000 short. The Army Reserve was doomed 
in the near future to an automatic shrinkage on a 
considerable scale, owing to the reductions which had 
been effected in the Regular Forces, from which the 
reservists were drawn at the expiry of their terms 
of service. 

Actually, therefore, the weakness of our own 
military position had become more marked since 
1911. Relatively it had undergone an even greater 
change for the worse, owing to the stupendous 
German programme, to the fact that we had lagged 
behind in the matter of aircraft, and that our naval 
preponderance was not so great as it had been three 
years earlier. 

The events which occurred in the Turkish peninsula 
between October 1912, when the first Balkan war 
broke out, and August 1913, when the second was 
ended by the Treaty of Bucharest, were not without 
their bearing upon the general balance of power in 
Europe. Turkey had collapsed before the onset of 

1 Mr. Haldane, the Secretary of State for War, in justifying this reduction 
explained that ' his infantry was in excess, the artillery was deficient.' He 
would rather not have cut off these nine battalions, " but he could not use 
' them. He had four more than he could mobilise " (Auchterarder, December 
29, 1906). In his view " the first step to doing anything for developing the 
' national basis of the Army was to cut something off the Regular Forces " 
(Newcastle, September 15, 1906). " He did not think Compulsory Training 
' would be adopted in this country until after England had been invaded 
' once or twice " (London, December 1, 1911). The British, however, had 
the best reasons for feeling secure : they " were always a nation of splendid 
' fighters. They were never ready, but they fought the better the less 
' ready they were . . ." (Glasgow, January 6, 1912). 

T 



274 THE SPIRIT OF BRITISH POLICY 

Pabt hi. the allied states of Montenegro, Servia, Bulgaria, 
Chapter and Greece, and this was a serious injury to German 
YI ' interests. The Ottoman Empire had been warmly 
Th e suitored, over a long period of years, by the diplomacy 

situation, of Berlin, with a view to co-operation in certain 
contingencies. On the other hand, the result of the 
second war — fomented by the intrigues of Vienna — in 
which Bulgaria was finally overpowered by the other 
three states, destroyed for the time being Slav 
solidarity, and thereby considerably relieved the 
apprehensions of Austria with regard to her southern 
frontier and recently annexed provinces of Bosnia 
and Herzegovina. . . . Profit -and -loss accounts of 
this sort are impossible to work out upon an arith- 
metical basis, and perhaps the chief importance of 
such occurrences as these lies in the effect which they 
produce upon the nerves of the onlookers. On the 
whole — judging by the tone of diplomacy at the time 
— the Balkan series of events appeared to have raised 
greater anxieties in the Chancelleries of Germany and 
Austria than in any other quarter ; though why this 
should have been so, it is difficult to understand. 

Looking back at the Balkan struggle in the light 
of subsequent events, it appears to us now a great 
deal less remarkable for what it actually produced 
than for what it failed to produce. It failed to set 
Europe in a blaze, and yet it afforded far better 
opportunities for doing this than the Serajevo 
murders in June 1914. 

The full inner history of the negotiations between 
the Great Powers, for six months prior to the Treaty 
of Bucharest, will be interesting reading, if it ever 
sees the fight. If even one of them had chosen to 
work for war during this period, nothing could have 



GEKMANY'S TWO DATES 275 

kept the peace. If one or two of them had been part hi. 
apathetic, war must inevitably have come of itself. Chapter 
But even France — who at that time was showing ^1 
signs of superficial excitement, and on that account The 
was credited, not only in the German press, but in situation. 
a section of our own, with chauvinistic designs — 
worked hard for peace. It is certain that Germany 
desired peace ; many well - informed people indeed 
believed that at this time she desired peace more 
ardently than any other state. It is true that a few 
days before the Treaty of Bucharest was signed, 
Italy had been secretly sounded by Austria as to 
whether she would join with her two allies in making 
an attack on Servia ; but the Italian reply being of a 
kind that took away all hope of securing the military 
assistance of that country in the proposed adventure, 
the Concert of Europe continued to perform the 
pacific symphony apparently in perfect accord. 

The policy of Germany, in 1912 and 1913, to 
preserve peace, and her efforts — equally successful — 
in the following year to provoke war, were probably 
due to one and the same cause. Two dates from 
Germany's point of view were of supreme importance 
— the summer of 1914, when her new military pre- 
parations would be complete, and when the Kiel 
Canal — having been widened and deepened 1 — would 

1 On June 23, 1914, the Emperor William opened the new lock at the 
North Sea end of the Kiel Canal. On the following day he performed the 
same function at the Baltic end. The Times correspondent remarks that 
the Emperor's passage through the Canal on this occasion was of symbolical 
rather than practical significance, as on the one hand German Dreadnoughts 
had already used the widened passage experimentally, while on the other 
hand it would be a long time before the whole work was finished. He 
continues : " The extension works, which were begun in 1907, are, how- 
' ever, of vast importance, especially to the Navy. The Canal has been 
' made two metres deeper, and has been doubled in breadth. The places 
' at which large ships can pass one another have been increased in number, 
' and at four of them Dreadnoughts can be turned. There are now four, 



276 THE SPIRIT OF BRITISH POLICY 

Pabt hi. be available for the passage of Dreadnoughts ; the 
Chapter summer of 1916, by which date the French Army 

'_ increases were due to take effect, and the Russian 

The scheme of military reorganisation would have been 

situation, carried through. From the point of view of Berlin 
and Vienna war could be waged to greatest advantage 
so soon as the first of these two dates had been 
reached. If, however, Italy, always a doubtful 
participator, could have been tempted by self-interest 
to make common cause with her allies in the summer 
of 1913, the certainty of her adherence would have 
turned the scales in favour of the earlier date. For 
Italy could put an army of 700,000 men into the 
field ; and this no doubt would have more than 
compensated for the benefits which might have been 
lost by anticipating the ideal moment by a year. 

' instead of two, at each end, which means a great saving of time in getting 
' a fleet through. Above all, the distance between Kiel and Wilhelmshaven 
' for battleship purposes is reduced from more than 500 to only 80 nautical 
' miles. The new locks at Brunsbiittel and Holtenau are the largest in the 
< world."— The Times, June 25, 1914. 



CHAPTER VII 

A TRAGEDY OF ERRORS 

It may be said — up to the very outbreak of war par T m. 
it was said very frequently — that the mere power chapter 
and opportunity to make an outrageous attack are ^ n ' 
nothing without the will to do so. And this is true a tragedy 
enough. Every barber who holds his client by the 01 
nose could cut his throat as easily as shave his 
chin. Every horse could kick the groom, who rubs 
him down, into the next world if he chose to do 
so. What sense, then, could there be in allowing 
our minds to be disturbed by base suspicions of 
our enterprising and cultured neighbour ? What 
iota of proof was there that Germany nourished 
evil thoughts, or was brooding on visions of conquest 
and rapine ? 

So ran the argument of almost the whole Liberal 
press ; and a considerable portion of the Unionist 
press echoed it. Warnings were not heeded. They 
came only from unofficial quarters, and therefore 
lacked authority. Only the Government could have 
spoken with authority ; and the main concern of 
members of the Government, when addressing parlia- 
mentary or popular audiences, appeared to be to 
prove that there was no need for anxiety. They 
went further in many instances, and denounced 

277 



278 THE SPIRIT OF BRITISH POLICY 

Part hi. those persons who ventured to express a different 
Chapter opinion from this, as either madmen or malefactors. 

1 Nevertheless a good deal of proof had already 

a tragedy been published to the world — a good deal more was 

of errors 

known privately to the British Government — all of 
which went to show that Germany had both the 
will and intention to provoke war, if a favourable 
opportunity for doing so should present itself. 

For many years past — in a multitude of books, 
pamphlets, leading articles, speeches, and university 
lectures — the Germans had been scolding us, and 
threatening us with attack at their own chosen 
moment. When Mr. Churchill stated bluntly, in 
1912, that the German fleet was intended as a challenge 
to the British Empire, he was only repeating, in 
shorter form and more sober language, the boasts 
which had been uttered with yearly increasing 
emphasis and fury, by hundreds of German patriots 
and professors. 

With an engaging candour and in every fount of 
type, unoflicial Germany had made it abundantly 
clear how she intended to carry her designs into execu- 
tion — how, first of all, France was to be crushed by a 
swift and overwhelming attack — how Russia was then 
to be punished at leisure — how after that, some of the 
nations of Europe were to be forced into an alliance 
against the British Empire, and the rest into a 
neutrality favourable to Germany — how finally the 
great war, which aimed at making an end of our 
existence, was to begin. And though, from time to 
time, there were bland official utterances which dis- 
avowed or ignored these outpourings, the outpourings 
continued all the same. And each year they became 
more copious, and achieved a readier sale. 



THE FIRST WARNING 279 

Those, however, who were responsible for British Part hi. 
policy appear to have given more credit to the Chapter 

assurances of German diplomacy than to this mass '. 

of popular incitement. The British nation has a tragedy 

•t ir ot errors. 

always chosen to plume itself upon the fact that the 
hearts of British statesmen are stronger than their 
heads ; and possibly their amiable credulity, in the 
present instance, might have been forgiven, had 
their means of ascertaining truth been confined to 
the statements of incontinent publicists and respons- 
ible statesmen. But there were other proofs avail- 
able besides words of either sort. 

The Liberal Government came into office in the 
autumn of 1905. Ministers can hardly have had 
time to master the contents of their various port- 
folios, before German aggression burst rudely in 
upon them. Conceivably the too carefully calculating 
diplomatists of Berlin had concluded, that the prin- 
ciples of the new Cabinet would tend to keep England 
neutral under any provocation, and that a heaven- 
sent opportunity had therefore arrived for proceeding 
with the first item in their programme by crushing 
France. It is a highly significant fact that early in 
1906, only a few months after Sir Henry Campbell- 
Bannerman's advent to power, he found himself 
faced with the prospect of a European war, which 
was only averted when our Foreign Minister made it 
clear to Germany, that in such an event this country 
would range herself upon the side of France. 1 

1 The Editor of the Westminster Gazette should be an unimpeachable 
witness : " The (German) Emperor's visit to Tangier (March 1905) was 
' followed by a highly perilous passage of diplomacy, in which the German 
' Government appeared to be taking risks out of all proportion to any 
' interest they could have had in Morocco. The French sacrificed their 



280 THE SPIRIT OF BRITISH POLICY 

part hi. This was the first warning. 

Chapter 

'_ The British answer to it was to utter renewed 

a tragedy protestations of friendly confidence. As an earnest of 

of errors 

our good intentions, the shipbuilding programme * of 
the previous Government was immediately reduced. 
The burden of armaments became the burden 
of innumerable speeches. In well -chosen words 
Germany was coaxed and cajoled to acquiesce in 
our continued command of the sea ; but finding in our 
action or inaction an opportunity for challenging it, 
she turned a polite ear — but a deaf one — and pushed 
forward her preparations with redoubled speed. In 
vain did we on our part slow down work at our new 
naval base in the Firth of Forth. In vain did we 
reduce our slender army to even smaller dimensions. 2 
In vain did we plead disinterestedly with Germany, 
for a reduction in the pace of competition in naval 
armaments, on the terms that we should be allowed 
to possess a fleet nearly twice as strong as her 
own. For the most part, during this period, official 
Germany remained discreetly silent, for the reason 
that silence served her purpose best ; but when the 
persistency of our entreaties made some sort of 

' Foreign Minister (M. Delcasse) in order to keep the peace, but the Germans 
' were not appeased, and the pressure continued. It was the general belief 
' at this time, that nothing but the support which the British government 
' gave to the French averted a catastrophe in the early part of 1906, or 
' induced the Germans to accept the Algeciras conference as the way out 
1 of a dangerous situation." — The Foundations of British Policy (p. 15), by 
J. A. Spender. 

1 The Cawdor Programme. 

2 Mr. Haldane reduced the Army by nine battalions {i.e. 9000 men) in 
1906. He stated that he had no use for them. This meant a great deal 
more , when the reserve-making power is taken into consideration. . . . 
" The Regular Army . . . has been reduced by over 30,000 men; not only 
' a present, but a serious prospective loss." — Lord Roberts in the House of 
Lords, April 3, 1913. 



THE SECOND WARNING 281 

answer necessary, we were given to understand by Part hi. 
unofficial Germany — rather roughly and gruffly — that Chapter 

a certain class of requests was inadmissible as '_ 

between gentlemen. a tragedy 

m • 1*1111° elTOrs * 

Then suddenly, having up to that time lulled 
ourselves into the belief that our fine words had 
actually succeeded in buttering parsnips, we awoke — 
in the late autumn of 1908 — to the truth, and fell 
immediately into a fit of panic. Panic increased 
during the winter and following spring, and culmin- 
ated during the summer, in an Imperial Defence 
Conference with the Dominions. 

We had curtailed our shipbuilding programme 
and slowed down our preparations. Thereby we 
had hoped to induce Germany to follow suit. But 
the effect had been precisely the opposite : she had 
increased her programme and speeded up her pre- 
parations. At last our Government became alive 
to what was going on, and in tones of reverberant 
anxiety informed an astonished nation that the naval 
estimates called for large additions. 

Ministers, indeed, were between the devil and the 
deep sea. The supremacy of the British Fleet was 
menaced ; the conscience of the Radical party was 
shocked — shocked not so much at the existence of the 
menace as at official recognition of it, and at the 
cost of insuring against it. It was so much shocked, 
indeed, that it took refuge in incredulity ; and — upon 
the strength of assurances which were of course 
abundantly forthcoming from the German Admiralty, 
who averred upon their honour that there had 
been neither addition nor acceleration — roundly 
accused its own anointed ministers of bearing false 
witness against an innocent neighbour. 



282 THE SPIRIT OF BRITISH POLICY 

Part hi. None the less, large sums were voted, and the 

Chapter Dominions came forward with generous contributions. 
VII ... 
1 Sir Wilfrid Laurier, indeed, who had been nourished 

a tragedy an( j brought up on a diet of dried phrases, was scepti- 

of errors. ° . •*■ x J - 

cal. To this far-sighted statesman there appeared 
to be no German menace either then or sub- 
sequently. The whole thing was a mere nightmare, 
disturbing the innocent sleep of Liberalism and 
democracy. 1 

This was the second warning. 

The third warning came in the form of subterranean 
rumblings, inaudible to the general public, but clearly 
heard by ministerial ears. 

In July 1909, while the Imperial Conference on 
Defence was in session, Herr von Bethmann-Hollweg 
succeeded Prince Biilow as German Chancellor. Up 
to that time there had been the menace of the 
mailed fist, the rattling sabre, and the shining 
armour. Henceforward there was the additional 
menace of a diplomacy playing for time, with a 
careless and unconcealed contempt for the intelli- 
gence, the courage, and the honour of the British 
people and their statesmen. 2 The German Govern- 
ment had clearly formed the opinion that our 
ministers were growing more and more afraid of 

1 Even four years later we find Sir Wilfrid Laurier wedded to the belief 
that the German Emperor was one of the great men of the present age ; 
wonderfully endowed by intellect, character, and moral fibre ; his potent 
influence was always directed towards peace. — Canadian House of 
Commons Debates, February 27, 1913, 4364. The whole of this speech 
(4357-4364) in opposition to Mr. Borden's Naval Forces Bill is interesting 
reading, as is also a later speech, April 7, 1913, on the same theme (7398- 
7411). 

2 How Britain Strove for Peace, by Sir Edward Cook : especially pp. 18-35 ; 
also Why Britain is at War, by the same author. These two pamphlets are 
understood to be a semi-official statement authorised by the British Govern- 
ment. 



THE THIRD WARNING 283 

asking their party to support increased naval part hi. 
estimates, and that it was only necessary to go on, Chapter 

alternately dangling and withdrawing illusory pro- '_ 

posals for a naval understanding and a general a tragedy 

* . , °f errors. 

agreement, in order to steal ahead of us in the race. 
Here, as in many other instances, the Germans had 
observed not altogether incorrectly ; but they had 
drawn the wrong inference from the facts. 

During the summer and autumn of 1910 was held 
the famous but futile Constitutional Conference, the 
primary object of which was to settle the quarrel 
between the two Houses of Parliament. With 
steadily increasing clumsiness, German diplomacy, 
through all this anxious time, was engaged in holding 
out its hand and withdrawing it again; until even 
men whose minds were worried with more immediate 
cares, could no longer ignore the gravity of the 
situation. 

The Conference adjourned for the holiday season, 
but resumed its sessions in October. The public 
assurances of those who took part in it on both sides 
agree in this, that nothing except the special subject 
for which it had been called into existence was ever 
discussed at its meetings. But many other things 
were certainly discussed outside its meetings — on 
the doorstep and the staircase, and in the ante- 
rooms. Among these topics the dangers of the 
international situation, and the peril of imperial 
security were the chief. 

In October and November 1910 there was a great 
secret of Polichinelle. Conceivably we may learn 
from some future historian even more about it than 
we knew at the time. All that need be said here 
with reference to the matter is, that many persons on 



284 THE SPIRIT OF BRITISH POLICY 

pakt hi. both sides found themselves faced with a position of 

Chapter affairs, where the security of the country plainly 

VIL required measures for its defence, of a character 

a tragedy an d upon a scale, which neither political party could 

hope to carry through Parliament and commend to 

the country, unless it were supported by the more 

responsible section of its opponents. 

Neither party, however, was willing to pay the 
price necessary for the support of the other, and 
as a consequence imperial interests suffered. It is 
not necessary, however, to conclude from this lament- 
able failure that a sordid spirit of faction was the 
explanation. In the constitutional sphere certain 
principles were in conflict, which the parties con- 
cerned had the honesty to hold by, but lacked the 
sympathy, and possibly the intelligence, to adjust. 
The acrimony of an immediate controversy dis- 
torted the vision of those engaged in it ; so that the 
proportions of domestic and foreign dangers were 
misjudged. 

The failure of this constitutional conference was 
welcomed at the time by exultant shoutings among 
many, perhaps the majority, of the rank and file of 
politicians upon both sides. It was not so regarded, 
however, by the country, which in a remarkable 
degree refused to respond to the incitements of 
violence and hatred with which it was plied during 
the ensuing election. There was at this time, for no 
very definite reason, a widespread popular uneasiness, 
and something approaching a general disgust with 
politicians. 

Among more considerate men on both sides, the 
breakdown was frankly spoken of as one of the great 
calamities in our political history. It was more 



THE FOURTH WARNING 285 

than that. It was in reality one of the greatest which pakt hi. 

have ever befallen Europe. Chapter 

r VII. 

During the following July (1911), while in this a tragedy 

, 1-11- t of errors. 

country we were deeply engaged in the bitter climax 
of the constitutional struggle, there sounded a fourth 
strident warning from the gong of the German Chan- 
cellery. 

The Agadir incident is one of the strangest which 
have occurred in British history during recent years. 
Its full gravity was not realised outside a very narrow 
circle at the time of its occurrence ; and when subse- 
quently it became more widely understood there was 
a curious conspiracy to hush it up — or, perhaps, not 
so much a conspiracy, as a general instinct of con- 
cealment — a spontaneous gesture of modesty — as if 
the British nation had been surprised bathing. 

At the beginning of July the German cruiser 
Panther appeared at Agadir in Morocco. This visit 
was intended and understood as a direct challenge 
to France. Diplomacy was immediately in a stir. 

Three weeks later Mr. Lloyd George spoke at the 
Mansion House, making it clear that England would 
not tolerate this encroachment. Even amid the 
anger and excitement which attended the last stages 
of the Parliament Bill, this statement created a deep 
impression throughout the country, and a still deeper 
impression in other countries. 

Then the crisis appeared to fade away. Germany 
was supposed to have become amenable. We re- 
turned to our internecine avocations. The holiday 
season claimed its votaries, and a great railway strike 
upset many of their best-laid plans. The inhabitants 
of the United Kingdom are accustomed to think 



286 THE SPIRIT OF BRITISH POLICY 

Part hi. only on certain topics during August and September, 
Chapter and it is hard to break them of their habits. To 

'. reconsider a crisis which had arisen and passed away 

a tragedy some two and a half months earlier, was more than 

of errors. 

could be expected of us when we returned to work 
in the autumn. 

But Mr. Lloyd George's speech was capable of 
only one interpretation, — if Germany had persisted 
in her encroachment, this country would have gone 
to war in August or September 1911 in support of 
France. His words had no other meaning, and every 
highly placed soldier and sailor was fully aware of 
this fact, and made such preparations in his own 
sphere as the case required. But from what has 
transpired subsequently, it does not seem at all clear 
that more than two or three of the Cabinet in the 
least realised what was happening. Parliament did 
not understand the situation any more than the 
country did. 

Later on, when people had time to concentrate 
their minds on such matters, there was a thrill 
of post-dated anxiety — a perturbation and dis- 
approval ; criticism upon various points ; a trans- 
ference of Mr. McKenna from the Admiralty to the 
Home Office, and of Mr. Churchill from the Home 
Office to the Admiralty. Indignant anti-militarists, 
supporters for the most part of the Government, 
allowed themselves to be mysteriously reduced 
to silence. Business men, who had been shocked 
when they learned the truth, suffered themselves to 
be persuaded that even the truth must be taken 
with a pinch of salt. There was, in fact, a sort of 
general agreement that it was better to leave the 
summer embers undisturbed, lest a greater conflagra- 



THE FIFTH WARNING 287 

tion might ensue. The attitude of the orthodox part in. 
politician was that of a nervous person who, hearing, Chapter 

as he imagines, a burglar in his bedroom, feels happier [ 

and safer when he shuts his eyes and pulls the blankets A tragedy 

J *■ of errors. 

over his head. 

A few months later, at the beginning of the 
following year (1912), the fifth warning of the series 
was delivered. 

It differed from its predecessors inasmuch as it 
was addressed to the ears of the British Government 
alone. Neither the Opposition nor the country heard 
anything of it until more than two years later — until 
the battles of Alsace, of Charleroi, and of Mons had 
been lost — until the battle of the Marne had been won 
— until the British Army was moving north to take up 
a position in Flanders. Then we learned that, when 
Lord Haldane had visited Berlin in the month of 
February 1912, he had done so at the special request 
of the Kaiser, in order to consider how Anglo-German 
misunderstandings might be removed. 

Lord Haldane would have acted more wisely had 
he stopped his journey en route, and never entered 
Berlin at all. For, two days before the date appointed 
for his visit, proposals for large increases of the 
German Army and Navy were laid before the Reichs- 
tag. His mission was to abate competition in 
armaments, and here was an encouraging beginning ! 
Was it contempt, or insolence, or a design to overawe 
the supposed timidity of the emissary ; or was it 
merely a blundering effort to steal a march in 
the negotiations by facing the ambassador on his 
arrival with a fait accompli ? Possibly it was a 
combination of all these ; but at any rate it was 



288 THE SPIRIT OF BRITISH POLICY 

Part hi. exceedingly clumsy, and no less significant than 

Chapter clumsy. 

Vn * As to the mission — Germany was willing in a 

a tragedy vague way to ' retard ' — whatever that may mean 
— though not to abandon, or reduce, her naval 
programme, providing the British Government would 
agree to remain neutral in any war which Germany 
might choose to wage. France might be crushed 
and Belgium annexed ; but in either event England 
must stand aside and wait her turn. On no other 
terms would the Kaiser consent to a rapproche- 
ment with this country, or allow the blessed words 
' retardation of the naval programme ' to be uttered 
by official lips. 

An undertaking of this tenor went beyond those 
assurances of non-aggressive intent which Lord 
Haldane, on behalf of his own Government, was 
fully prepared to give. We would not be a party 
to any unprovoked attack on Germany — was not 
that sufficient ? It was plainly insufficient. It was 
made clear that Germany desired a free hand to 
establish herself in a position of supremacy astride 
of Europe. So Lord Haldane returned profitless 
from his wayfaring, and the British Government was 
at its wits' end how to placate the implacable. 

The way they chose was well-doing, in which 
they wearied themselves perhaps overmuch, especially 
during the Balkan negotiations. For Germany did 
not want war at that time, for the reasons which 
have been given already. And so, rather surlily, and 
with the air of one who was humouring a crank — a 
pusillanimous people whose fixed idea was pacifism 
— she consented that we should put ourselves to 
vast trouble to keep the peace for her benefit. If 



THE HALDANE MISSION 289 

war had to come in the end, it had much better have part hi. 
come then — so far as we were concerned — seeing Chapter 

that the combined balance of naval and military '_ 

power was less unfavourable to the Triple Entente a tragedy 

of errors 

at the beginning of 1913 than it was some fifteen 
months later. . . . This was all the notice we took 
of the fifth warning. We earned no gratitude by 
our activities, nor added in any way thereby to our 
own safety. 

The Haldane mission is a puzzle from first to last. 
The Kaiser had asked that he should be sent. . . . 
For what purpose ? . . . Apparently in order to 
discuss the foreign policy of England and Germany. 
But surely the Kaiser should have been told that we 
kept an Ambassador at Berlin for this very purpose ; 
an able man, habituated to stand in the strong sun- 
light of the imperial presence without losing his 
head ; but, above all, qualified to converse on such 
matters (seeing that they lay within his own province) 
far better than the most profound jurist in Christen- 
dom. Or if our Ambassador at Berlin could not say 
what was required, the German Ambassador in London 
might easily have paid a visit to Downing Street ; 
or the Foreign Ministers of the two countries might 
have arranged a meeting ; or even the British Premier 
and the German Chancellor might have contrived to 
come together. Any of these ways would have been 
more natural, more proper, more likely (one would 
think) to lead to business, than the way which was 
followed. 

One guesses that the desire of the Kaiser that 
Lord Haldane should be sent, was met half-way by 
the desire of Lord Haldane to go forth ; that there 
was some temperamental affinity between these 

u 



290 THE SPIRIT OF BRITISH POLICY 

Part hi. two pre - eminent characters — some attraction of 
Chapter opposites, like that of the python and the rabbit. 

VIL Whatever the reasons may have been for this 

a tragedy visit, the results of it were bad, and indeed disastrous. 
To have accepted the invitation was to fall into a 
German trap ; a trap which had been so often set 
that one might have supposed it was familiar to 
every Foreign Office in Europe. Berlin has long 
delighted in these extra-official enterprises, under- 
taken behind the backs of accredited representatives. 
Confidences are exchanged ; explanations are offered 
' in the frankest spirit ' ; sometimes understandings 
of a kind are arrived at. But so far as Germany is 
concerned, nothing of all this is binding, unless her 
subsequent interests make it desirable that it should 
be. The names of the irregular emissaries, German, 
British, and cosmopolitan, whom the Kaiser has 
sent to London and received at Berlin since the 
beginning of his reign, would fill a large and very 
interesting visitors' book. One would have imagined 
that by the month of February 1912 this favourite 
device had been found out and discredited even in 
Downing Street. 

Lord Haldane was perhaps even less well fitted 
for such an embassy by temperament and habit of 
mind, than he was by position and experience. 
Lawyer - statesmanship, of the modern democratic 
sort, is of all forms of human agency the one least 
likely to achieve anything at Potsdam. The British 
emissary was tireless, industrious, and equable. 
His colleagues, on the other hand, were overworked, 
indolent, or flustered. Ready on the shortest notice 
to mind everybody else's business, he was allowed 
to mind far too much of it ; and he appears to have 



THE GEKMAN INTERPRETATION 291 

minded most of it rather ill than well. He was no Part hi. 
more suited to act for the Foreign Office than King Chapter 

Alfred was to watch the housewife's cakes. '_ 

The man whose heart swells with pride in his own A tragedy 

of errors 

ingenuity usually walks all his life in blinkers. It is 
not surprising that Lord Haldane's visit to the Kaiser 
was a failure, that it awoke distrust at the time, or 
that it opened the way to endless misrepresentation in 
the future. What surprises is his stoicism ; that he 
should subsequently have shown so few signs of 
disappointment, distress, or mortification ; that he 
should have continued up to the present moment to 
hold himself out as an expert on German psychology ; * 
that he should be still upheld by his journalistic 
admirers, to such an extent that they even write 
pamphlets setting out to his credit ' what he did to 
thwart Germany.' 2 

We have been told by Mr. Asquith, 3 what was 
thought by the British Government of the outcome 
of Lord Haldane's embassy. We have also been 
informed by Germany, what was thought of it by 
high officials at Berlin ; what inferences they drew 
from these conversations ; what hopes they founded 
upon them. We do not know, however, what was 
thought of the incident by the other two members 
of the Entente ; how it impressed the statesmen of 
Paris and Petrograd ; for they must have known 
of the occurrence — the English representative not 
being one whose comings and goings would easily 

1 Lord Haldane has explained German conduct in the present war by 
a sudden change of spirit, such as once befell a collie dog which owned him 
as master, and which after a blameless early career, was possessed by a fit 
of depravity in middle life and took to worrying sheep. Thus in a single 
metaphor he extenuates the German offence and excuses his own blindness ! 

2 " Lord Haldane : What he did to thwart Germany." Pamphlet 
published by the Daily Chronicle. 3 At Cardiff, October 2, 1914. 



292 THE SPIRIT OF BRITISH POLICY 

Part hi. escape notice. The British, people were told nothing ; 
Chapter they knew nothing ; and therefore, naturally enough, 

' they thought nothing about the matter. 
a tragedy The British Cabinet — if Mr. Asquith's memory is 

of errors 

to be relied on — saw through the devilish designs of 
Germany so soon as Lord Haldane, upon his return, 
unbosomed himself to the conclave in quaking 
whispers. We know from the Prime Minister, that 
when he heard how the Kaiser demanded a free hand 
for European conquests, as the price of a friendly 
understanding with England, the scales dropped 
from his eyes, and he realised at once that this merely 
meant the eating of us up later. But one cannot 
help wondering, since Mr. Asquith was apparently 
so clear-sighted about the whole matter, that he 
made no preparations whatsoever — military, financial, 
industrial, or even naval (beyond the ordinary 
routine) — against an explosion which — the mood and 
intentions of Germany being what they were now 
recognised to be — might occur at any moment. 

As to what Germany thought of the incident we 
know of course only what the high personages at 
Berlin have been pleased to tell the world about 
their ' sincere impressions.' They have been very 
busy doing this — hand upon heart as their wont is — 
in America and elsewhere. According to their own 
account they gathered from Lord Haldane's mission 
that the British Government and people were very 
much averse from being drawn into European con- 
flicts ; that we now regretted having gone quite 
so far as we had done in the past, in the way of 
entanglements and understandings ; that while we 
could not stand by, if any other country was being 
threatened directly on account of arrangements it 



COST OF AMATEUR DIPLOMACY 293 

had come to with England, England certainly was Part iil 
by no means disposed to seek officiously for oppor- chapter 

tunities of knight-errantry. In simple words the '_ 

cases of Tangier and Agadir were coloured by a a tragedy 

° ° /of errors. 

special obligation, and were to be distinguished 
clearly from anything in the nature of a general obliga- 
tion or alliance with France and Russia. 

It is quite incredible that Lord Haldane ever said 
anything of this kind ; for he would have been four 
times over a traitor if he had — to France ; to 
Belgium ; to his own country ; also to Germany 
whom he would thus have misled. It is also all 
but incredible that a single high official at Berlin 
ever understood him to have spoken in this sense. 
But this is what the high officials have assured 
their own countrymen and the whole of the neutral 
world that they did understand ; and they have 
called piteously on mankind to witness, how false 
the British Government was to an honourable 
understanding, so soon as trouble arose in July 
last with regard to Servia. Such are some of the 
penalties we have paid for the luxury of indulging 
in amateur diplomacy. 

The German bureaucracy, however, always presses 
things too far. It is not a little like Fag in The 
Rivals — " whenever it draws on its invention for a 
' good current lie, it always forges the endorsements 
' as well as the bill." As a proof that the relations of 
the two countries from this time forward were of the 
best, inferences have been drawn industriously by 
the high officials at Berlin as to the meaning and 
extent of Anglo-German co-operation during the 
Balkan wars ; as to agreements with regard to Africa 
already signed, but not published, in which Downing 



294 THE SPIRIT OF BRITISH POLICY 

part in. Street had shown itself ' surprisingly accommodating '; 
Chapter as to other agreements with regard to the Baghdad 

T7TT ^ m 

'_ Railway, the Mesopotamian oil-fields, the navigation 

a tragedy f the Tigris, and access through Basra to the Persian 
Gulf. These agreements, the earnest of a new 
entente between the Teuton nations — the United 
States subsequently to be welcomed in — are alleged 
to have been already concluded, signed and awaiting 
publication when war broke out. 1 Then trouble 
arises in Servia ; a mere police business — nothing 
more — which might have been settled in a few days 
or at any rate weeks, if perfidious Albion had not 
seized the opportunity to work upon Muscovite 
suspicions, in order to provoke a world-war for which 
she had been scheming all the time ! 

The sixth warning was the enormous German 
Army Bill and the accompanying war loan of 1913. 
By comparison, the five previous warnings were but 
ambiguous whispers. And yet this last reverberation 
had apparently no more effect upon the British 
Government than any of the rest. 

With all these numerous premonitions the puzzle 
is, how any government could have remained in 
doubt as to the will of Germany to wage war when- 

1 If this were really so, it is remarkable that Germany has not published 
these opiate documents, which lulled her vigilance and were the cause of her 
undoing. In the New York Evening Post (February 15, 1915) there is a 
letter signed ' Historicus ' in which the German version of the facts is not 
seriously questioned, although a wholly different inference is drawn : 
" This extremely conciliatory attitude of England is another proof of the 
' pacific character of her foreign policy. But, unfortunately, German 
' political thought regards force as the sole controlling factor in international 
' relations, and cannot conceive of concessions voluntarily made in answer 
' to claims of a more or less equitable nature. To the German mind such 
' actions are infallible indications of weakness and decadence. Apparently 
' Grey's attitude towards German claims in Turkey and Africa was so 
' interpreted, and the conclusion was rashly reached that England could 
' be ignored in the impending world-war." 



THE SIXTH WARNING 295 

ever her power seemed adequate and the opportunity Part hi. 
favourable for winning it. The favourite plea that Chapter 

the hearts of Mr. Asquith and his colleagues were 1 

stronger than their heads does not earn much respect. A tragedy 

of errors 

Knowing what we do of them in domestic politics, 
this excuse would seem to put the quality of their 
heads unduly low. The true explanation of their 
omissions must be sought elsewhere than in their 
intellects and affections. 

It is important to remember that none of the 
considerations which have been set out in this chapter 
can possibly have been hidden from the Foreign 
Office, the War Office, the Admiralty, the Prime 
Minister, the Committee of Imperial Defence, or 
the inner or outer circles of the Cabinet. Important 
papers upon matters of this kind go the round 
of the chief ministers. Unless British public 
offices have lately fallen into a state of more 
than Turkish indolence, of more than German 
miscalculation, it is inconceivable that the true 
features of the situation were not laid before ministers, 
dinned into ministers, proved and expounded to 
ministers, by faithful officials, alive to the dangers 
which were growing steadily but rapidly with each 
succeeding year. And although we may only surmise 
the vigilant activity of these subordinates, we do 
actually know, that Mr. Asquith's Government was 
warned of them, time and again, by other persons 
unconcerned in party politics and well qualified to 
speak. 

But supposing that no one had told them, they 
had their own wits and senses, and these were surely 
enough. A body of men whose first duty is the 



296 THE SPIRIT OF BRITISH POLICY 

part hi. preservation of national security — who are trusted to 

Chapter attend to that task, paid for performing it, honoured 

_J^' under the belief that they do attend to it and perform 

a tragedy it — cannot plead, in excuse for their failure, that no 

of errors 

one had jogged their elbows, roused them from their 
slumbers or their diversions, and reminded them of 
their duty. 

Mr. Asquith and his chief colleagues must have 
realised the interdependence of policy and arma- 
ments ; and they must have known, from the year 
1906 onwards, that on the military side our arma- 
ments were utterly inadequate to maintain our policy. 
They must have known that each year, force of 
circumstances was tending more and more to con- 
solidate the Triple Entente into an alliance, as the 
only means of maintaining the balance of power, 
which was a condition both of the freedom, of Europe 
and of British security. They knew — there can be 
no doubt on this point — what an immense numerical 
superiority of armed forces Germany and Austria 
together could bring, first against France at the 
onset of war, and subsequently, at their leisure, 
against Russia during the grip of war. They 
knew that a British Expeditionary Army of 160,000 
men would not make good the difference — would 
come nowhere near making good the difference. 
They must have known that from the point of view 
of France and Belgium, the special danger of modern 
warfare was the crushing rapidity of its opening 
phase. They must have been kept fully informed 
of all the changes which were taking place in the 
military situation upon the continent to the detri- 
ment of the Triple Entente. They had watched the 
Balkan war and measured its effects. They knew 



INACTION OF THE GOVERNMENT 297 

the meanings of the critical dates — 1914-1916 — part in. 
better, we may be sure, than any section of their Chapter 

fellow-countrymen. And even although they might '_ 

choose to disregard, as mere jingoism, all the boasts a tragedy 

• • r n • t of errors. 

and denunciations of German journalists and pro- 
fessors, they must surely have remembered the events 
which preceded the conference at Algeciras, and 
those others which led up to the Defence Conference 
of 1909. They can hardly have forgotten the 
anxieties which had burdened their hearts during 
the autumn of 1910. Agadir cannot have been 
forgotten ; the memory of Lord Haldane's rebuff was 
still green ; and the spectre of the latest German Army 
Bill must have haunted them in their dreams. 

There is here no question of being wise after 
the event. The meaning of each of these things in 
turn was brought home to Mr. Asquith and his 
chief colleagues as it occurred — firstly, we may be 
sure, by their own intelligence — secondly, we may 
be equally sure, by the reports of their responsible 
subordinates — thirdly, by persons of knowledge and 
experience, who had no axe to grind or interest to 
serve. 

It is therefore absurd to suppose that ministers 
could have failed to realise the extent of the danger, 
or of our unpreparedness to meet it, unless they 
had purposely buried their heads in the sand. They 
knew that they had not a big enough army, and 
that this fact might ruin their whole policy. Why 
did they never say so ? Why, when Lord Roberts 
said so, did they treat him with contumely, and 
make every effort to discredit him ? Why was 
nothing done by them during their whole period of 
office to increase the Army and thereby diminish the 



298 THE SPIRIT OF BRITISH POLICY 

Part hi. numerical superiority of their adversaries. On the 
Chapter contrary, they actually reduced the Army, assuring 

1 the country that they had no use for so many trained 

a tragedy soldiers. Moreover, the timidity or secretiveness of 

oi errors. J 

the Government prevented England from having, 
what is worth several army corps, and what proved 
the salvation of France — a National Policy, fully 
agreed and appealing to the hearts and consciences of 
the whole people. 

The answers to these questions must be sought 
in another sphere. The political situation was one 
of great perplexity at home as well as abroad, and 
its inherent difficulties were immeasurably increased 
by the character and temperament of Mr. Asquith, 
by the nature no less of his talents than of his 
defects. The policy of wait-and-see is not neces- 
sarily despicable. There are periods in which it has 
been the surest wisdom and the truest courage ; but 
this was not one of those periods, nor was there 
safety in dealing either with Ireland or with Germany 
upon this principle. When a country is fully pre- 
pared it can afford to wait and see if there will be a 
war ; but not otherwise. 

Sir Edward Grey is a statesman whose integrity 
and disinterestedness have never been impugned by 
friend or foe ; but from the very beginning of his 
tenure of office he has appeared to lack that supreme 
quality of belief in himself which stamps the greatest 
foreign ministers. He has seemed at times to hesitate, 
as if in doubt whether the dangers which he foresaw 
with his mind's eye were realities, or only nightmares 
produced by his own over - anxiety. We have a 
feeling also that in the conduct of his office he had 



SIR EDWARD GREY'S DIFFICULTIES 299 

played too lonely a part, and that such advice and Pakt hi. 
sympathy as he had received were for the most part Chapter 

of the wrong sort. What he needed in the way of 1 

counsel and companionship was simplicity and resolu- a tragedy 

■»■ *- x J of errors. 

tion. What he had to rely on was the very reverse 
of this. 

Lord Haldane, as we have learned recently, shared 
largely in the work of the Foreign Office ; a man 
of prodigious industry, but over-ingenious, and of 
a self-complacency which too readily beguiled him 
into the belief that there was no opponent who could 
not be satisfied, no obstacle which could not be made 
to vanish — by argument. 

Moreover, Sir Edward Grey had to contend 
against enemies within his own household. In the 
Liberal party there was a tradition, which has never 
been entirely shaken off, that all increase of arma- 
ments is provocative, and that all foreign engage- 
ments are contrary to the public interest. After the 
Agadir crisis he was made the object of a special 
attack by a large and influential section of his own 
party and press, and was roundly declared to be no 
longer possible as Foreign Minister. 1 There can be 
no doubt that the attempt to force Sir Edward Grey's 
resignation in the winter 1911-1912 was fomented 
by German misrepresentation and intrigue, skilfully 
acting upon the peculiar susceptibilities of radical 
fanaticism. Nor is there any doubt that the attacks 
which were made upon the policy of Mr. Churchill, 
from the autumn of 1912 onwards, were fostered by 

1 " The time has now come to state with a clearness which cannot be 
' mistaken that Sir Edward Grey as Foreign Secretary is impossible." — 
Daily News, January 10, 1912. The Daily News was not a lonely voice 
crying in the wilderness. Similar threats have been levelled against Mr. 
Churchill. 



300 THE SPIRIT OF BRITISH POLICY 

Part in. the same agency, using the same tools, and aiming 
Chapter at the same objects. 

VII i 

1 The orthodoxy of Mr. Churchill was suspect on 

a tragedy account of his Tory ancestry and recent conversion ; 

of errors. 

that of Sir Edward Grey on the ground that he was 
a country gentleman, bred in aristocratic traditions, 
trained in Foreign Affairs under the dangerous 
influences of Lord Rosebery, and therefore incapable 
of understanding the democratic dogma that loving- 
kindness will conquer everything, including Prussian 
ambitions. 

Surely no very vivid imagination is needed to 
penetrate the mystery of Cabinet discussions on 
defence for several years before war broke out. Be- 
hind the Cabinet, as the Cabinet well knew, was a 
party, one half of which was honestly oblivious of all 
danger, while the other half feared the danger much 
less than it hated the only remedy. Clearly the bulk of 
the Cabinet was in cordial sympathy either with one or 
other of these two sections of their party. Sir Edward 
Grey accordingly had to defend his policy against 
an immense preponderance of ingrained scepticism, 
settled prejudices, and personal interests. And at 
the same time he seems to have been haunted by 
the doubt lest, after all, his fears were only night- 
mares. Mr. Churchill, there is no difficulty in seeing, 
must have fought very gallantly ; but always, for 
the reason already given, with one hand tied behind 
his back. He had all his work cut out to maintain 
the Navy, which was under his charge, in a state of 
efficiency ; and this upon the whole he succeeded in 
doing pretty efficiently. 1 

1 It has been stated on good authority, that Mr. McKenna upheld the 
national interests with equal firmness, and against equal, if not greater 
opposition, while he was at the Admiralty. 



EXCESSIVE TIMIDITY 301 

If we may argue back from public utterances to Part hi. 
Cabinet discussions, it would appear that the only Chapter 

assistance — if indeed it deserved such a name — which 1 

was forthcoming to these two, proceeded from Mr. a tragedy 
Asquith and Lord Haldane. The former was by 
temperament opposed to clear decisions and vigorous 
action. The latter — to whom the mind of Germany 
was as an open book — bemused himself, and seems 
to have succeeded in bemusing his colleagues to 
almost as great an extent. 

In fancy, we can conjure up a scene which 
must have been enacted, and re-enacted, very often 
at Number 10 Downing Street in recent years. We 
can hear the warnings of the Foreign Minister, the 
urgent pleas of the First Lord of the Admiralty, the 
scepticism, indifference, or hostility expressed by the 
preponderant, though leaderless, majority in the 
Cabinet. Simple said, / see no danger ; Sloth said, 
Yet a little more sleep ; and Presumption said, Every 
Vat must stand upon his own bottom. . . . We can 
almost distinguish the tones of their Right Honourable 
voices. 

The situation was governed by an excessive 
timidity — by fear of colleagues, of the caucus, of the 
party, and of public opinion — by fear also of Germany. 
Mr. Asquith, and the Cabinet of which he was 
the head, refused to look their policy between the 
eyes, and realise what it was, and what were its in- 
evitable consequences. They would not admit that 
the Balance of Power was an English interest, or that 
they were in any way concerned in maintaining it. 
They would not admit that our Entente with France 
and Russia was in fact an alliance. They thought 
they could send British officers to arrange plans of 



302 THE SPIRIT OF BRITISH POLICY 

part iil campaign with the French General Staff — could learn 

Chapter from this source all the secret hopes and anxieties of 

France — could also withdraw the greater part of their 

a tragedy fleet from the Mediterranean, under arrangement 

of errors 

for naval co-operation with our present ally * — 
all without committing this country to any 
form of understanding ! They boasted that they had 
no engagements with France, which puzzled the 
French and the Russians, and convinced nobody, 
save possibly themselves, and a section of their own 
followers. They had in fact bound the country to a 
course of action — in certain events which were not at 
all improbable — just as surely by drifting into a com- 
mittal, as if they had signed and sealed a parchment. 
Yet they would not face the imperative condition. 
They would not place their armaments on a footing 
to correspond with their policy. 

Much of this is now admitted more or less frankly, 
but justification is pleaded, in that it was essential to 
lead the country cautiously, and that the Government 
could do nothing unless it had the people behind it. 
In these sayings there is a measure of truth. But as a 
matter of fact the country was not led at all. It was 
trapped. Never was there the slightest effort made 
by any member of the Government to educate 
the people with regard to the national dangers, 

1 A large section of the Liberal party watched with jealous anxiety our 
growing intimacy with France. In 1913, however, they discovered in it 
certain consolations in the withdrawal of our ships of war from the Mediter- 
ranean ; and they founded upon this a demand for the curtailing of our 
own naval estimates. France according to this arrangement was to look 
after British interests in the Mediterranean, Britain presumably was to 
defend French interests in the Bay of Biscay and the Channel. When, 
however, the war-cloud was banking up in July 1914, these very people 
who had been most pleased with our withdrawal from the Mediterranean, 
were those who urged most strongly that we should now repudiate our 
liabilities under the arrangement. 



VALUE OF SELF-SACRIFICE 303 

responsibilities, and duties. When the crisis occurred Part hi. 
the hand of the whole British Empire was forced. Chapter 

There was no other way ; but it was a bad '_ 

way. And what was infinitely worse, was the fact a tragedy 

-I 1 1111 1 * 1 1 1 °^ 8rr0rS - 

that, when war was declared — that war which had 
been discussed at so many Cabinet meetings since 
1906 — military preparations were found to be utterly 
inadequate in numbers ; and in many things other 
than numbers. The politician is right in thinking 
that, as a rule, it is to his advantage if the people are 
behind him ; but there are times when we can imagine 
him praying that they may not be too close. 

We have been given to understand that it was 
impossible for the Government to acknowledge their 
policy frankly, to face the consequences, and to 
insist upon the necessary preparations in men and 
material being granted. It was impossible, because 
to have done so would have broken the Liberal 
party — that great instrument for good — in twain. 
The Cabinet would have fallen in ruin. The careers 
of its most distinguished members would have been 
cut short. Consider what sacrifices would have been 
contained in this catalogue of disasters. 

That is really what we are now beginning to con- 
sider, and are likely to consider more and more as 
time goes on. 

A great act of self-sacrifice — a man's, or a party's — 
may sometimes make heedless people realise the 
presence of danger when nothing else will. Suppose 
Mr. Asquith had said, " I will only continue to hold 
1 office on one condition," and had named the con- 
dition — ' that armaments should correspond to policy ' 
— the only means of safety. He might thereupon have 
disappeared into the chasm ; but like Curtius he 



304 THE SPIRIT OF BRITISH POLICY 

part hi. might have saved the City. It would have made 
Chapter a great impression, Mr. Asquith falling from office 
VIL for his principles. Those passages of Periclean 
a tragedy grandeur, spoken after war broke out, about the 
crime of Germany against humanity — about sacri- 
ficing our own ease — about duty, honour, freedom, 
and the like — were wonderfully moving. Would 
there, however, have been occasion for them, if in 
the orator's own case, the sacrifice had been made 
before the event instead of after it, or if he had 
faithfully performed the simplest and chief of all 
the duties attaching to his great position ? 

The present war, as many of us thought, and still 
think, was not inevitable. None have maintained 
this opinion in the past with greater vehemence 
than the Liberal party. But the conditions on 
which it could have been avoided were, that England 
should have been prepared, which she was not ; and 
that she should have spoken her intentions clearly, 
which she did not. 

When the war is ended, or when the tide of it has 
turned and begun to sweep eastward, there will be 
much going and coming of the older people, and of 
women, both young and old, between England and 
France. They have waited, and what is it that they 
will then be setting forth to see ? . . . From Mons 
to the Marne, and back again to Ypres, heaps of 
earth, big and little, shapeless, nameless, numberless — 
the graves of men who did not hesitate to sacrifice 
either their careers or their lives when duty called 
them. Desolation is the heaviest sacrifice of all ; 
and those who will, by and by, go on this pilgrim- 
age have suffered it, ungrudgingly and with pride, 
because their country needed it. If this war was 



THE PRICE PAID 305 

indeed inevitable there is no more to be said. But Part in. 
what if it was not inevitable ? What if there would Chapter 

have been no war at all — or a less lingering and 1 

murderous war — supposing that those, who from the a tragedy 

oi errors 

trust reposed in them by their fellow-countrymen 
should have been the first to sacrifice their careers 
to duty, had not chosen instead to sacrifice duty to 
their careers ? It was no doubt a service to humanity 
to save the careers of politicians from extinction, 
to keep ministers in office from year to year, to 
preserve the Liberal party — that great instrument 
for good — unfractured. These benefits were worth 
a great price ; but were they worth quite so great a 
price as has been paid ? 



x 



PART IV 
DEMOCRACY AND NATIONAL SERVICE 



now i saw still in my dream, that they went on until they were 
come to the place that simple and sloth and presvmption lay and 
slept in, when christian went by on pilgrimage. and behold they 
were hanged hp in irons, a little way off on the other side. 

Then said Mercy to him that was their Guide and Conductor, 
What are those three men ? and for what are they hanged there ? 

GREAT-HEART : These three men were men of very bad qualities, 
they had no mind to be Pilgrims themselves, and whosoever they 
could they hindered. They were for sloth and folly themselves, 
and whoever they could persuade with, they made so too, and 
withal taught them to presume that they should do well at last. 
They were asleep when Christian went by, and now you go by they 
are hanged. 

MERCY : But could they persuade any to be of their opinion ? 

GREAT-HEART : Yes, they turned several out of the way. 
There was Slow-pace, that they persuaded to do as they. They 
also prevailed with one short-wind, with one no-heart, with one 
llnger-after-lust, and with one sleepy-head, and with a young 
woman her name was dull, to turn out of the way and become as 
they. Besides they brought up an ill report of your Lord, per- 
suading OTHERS THAT HE WAS A TASK-MASTER. THEY ALSO BROUGHT UP 

an evil report of the good land saying 'twas not half so good as 
some pretend it was. they also began to vilify his servants, and 
to count the very best of them meddlesome troublesome busy-bodies. 

The Pilgrim's Progress. 



CHAPTER I 

THE BRITISH ARMY AND THE PEACE OF EUROPE 

Many people who were not in the habit of concerning part iv. 
themselves with party politics endeavoured, during Chapter 
the autumn of 1911, and from that time forward, __ 
to straighten out their ideas on the twin problems The British 
of Foreign Policy and Defence. They were moved the peace 
thereto mainly by the Agadir incident. Moreover, of urope ' 
a year later, the Balkan war provided an object lesson 
in the success of sudden onset against an unprepared 
enemy. Gradually also, more and more attention 
was focussed upon the large annual increases in 
preparation of the warlike sort, which successive 
budgets, presented to the Reichstag, had been unable 
to hide away. In addition to these, came, early in 
1913, the sensational expansion of the German military 
establishment and the French reply to it, which have 
already been considered. 

Private enquirers of course knew nothing of Lord 
Haldane's rebuff at Berlin in 1912, for that was a 
Government secret. Nor had they any means of 
understanding more than a portion of what was 
actually afoot on the Continent of Europe in the 
matter of armaments and military preparations. 
Their sole sources of information were official papers 
and public discussions. Many additional facts beyond 

309 



310 DEMOCRACY AND NATIONAL SERVICE 

part iv. these are brought to the notice of governments through 

Chapter their secret intelligence departments. All continental 

' powers are more or less uncandid, both as regards 

The British ^ e di rec tion and the amount of their expenditure 

Army and - 1 - 

the peace on armaments. In the case of Germany concealment 
irope * is practised on a greater scale and more methodically 
than with any other. Ministers obviously knew a 
great deal more than the British public ; but what 
was known to the man-in-the-street was sufficiently 
disquieting, when he set himself to puzzle out its 
meanings. 

At this time (during 1912, and in the first half 
of 1913, until anxiety with regard to Ireland 
began to absorb public attention) there was a very 
widely -spread and rapidly -growing concern as to 
the security of the country. For nearly seven 
years Lord Roberts, with quiet constancy, had been 
addressing thin and, for the most part, inanimate 
gatherings on the subject of National Service. 
Suddenly he found himself being listened to with 
attention and respect by crowded audiences. 

Lord Roberts had ceased to be Commander- 
in-Chief in 1904. After his retirement, and in the 
same year, he revisited the South African battle- 
fields. During this trip, very reluctantly — for he 
was no lover of change — he came to the conclusion 
that in existing circumstances ' national service ' 
was a necessity. On his return to England he en- 
deavoured to persuade Mr. Balfour's Government 
to accept his views and give effect to them. Failing 
in this, he resigned his seat upon the Committee of 
Imperial Defence in 1905, in order that he might be 
able to advocate his opinion freely. He was then 
in his seventy-fourth year. It was not, however, 



NATIONAL ANXIETY 311 

until seven years later 1 that his words can be said part iv. 
to have arrested general attention. Chapter 

The truth was that the nation was beginning to '_ 

be dissatisfied with what it had been told by The British 
party speakers and newspapers, on the one side the peace 
and the other, regarding the state of the national ofEuro P e - 
defences. It had not even the consolation of feeling 
that what the one said might be set against the 
other, and truth arrived at by striking a balance 
between them. This method of the party system, 
which was supposed to have served fairly well in 
other matters, failed to reassure the nation with 
regard to its military preparations. The whole of 
this subject was highly complicated, lent itself readily 
to political mystery, and produced in existing circum- 
stances the same apprehensions among ordinary men 
as those of a nervous pedestrian, lost in a fog by the 
wharf side, who finds himself beset by officious and 
quarrelsome touts, each claiming permission to set 
him on his way. 

The nation was disquieted because it knew that 
it had not been told the whole truth by either set of 
politicians. It suspected the reason of this to be 
that neither set had ever taken pains to understand 
where the truth lay. It had a notion, moreover, 
that the few who really knew, were afraid — for party 
reasons — to speak out, to state their conclusions, and 
to propose the proper remedies, lest such a course 
might drive them from office, or prevent them from 
ever holding it. Beyond any doubt it was true that 
at this time many people were seriously disturbed 
by the unsatisfactory character of recent Parlia- 
mentary discussions, and earnestly desired to know 

1 October 1912. 



312 DEMOCRACY AND NATIONAL SERVICE 

part iv. the real nature of the dangers to be apprehended, 
Chapter and the adequacy of our preparations for meeting 

L them. 
The British There had always been a difficulty in keeping 
thTpeS the Army question from being used as a weapon in 
of Europe, p^y warfare. As to this — looking back over a long 
period of years — there was not much to choose between 
the Radicals, Liberals, or Whigs upon the one hand, 
and the Unionists, Conservatives, or Tories on the 
other. Military affairs are complicated and techni- 
cal ; and the very fact that the line of country is 
so puzzling to the ordinary man had preserved it as 
the happy hunting-ground of the politician. When 
an opportunity presented itself of attacking the 
Government on its army policy, the opposition — 
whether in the reign of Queen Victoria or in that of 
Queen Anne — rarely flinched out of any regard for 
the national interest. And when Parliamentary con- 
siderations and ingrained prejudices made it seem a 
risky matter to undertake reforms which were im- 
portant, or even essential, the Government of the 
day just as rarely showed any disposition to discharge 
this unpopular duty. 

While at times naval policy, and even foreign 
policy, had for years together been removed out of 
the region of purely party criticism, army policy had 
ever remained embarrassed by an evil tradition. 
From the time of John Churchill, Duke of Marlborough, 
to the time of Field-Marshal Sir John French — from 
a date, that is, only a few years after our modern 
Parliamentary system was inaugurated by the ' Glori- 
ous Revolution,' down to the present day — the char- 
acteristic of almost every opposition with regard 
to this matter, had been factiousness, and that of 



THE BLOOD TAXES 313 

almost every Government evasion. Neither the one Part iv. 
side nor the other had ever seemed able to approach Chapter 
this ill-fated topic with courage or sincerity, or to __ 
view it with steady constancy from the standpoint The British 

J J x Army and 

of the national interest. the peace 

For several years past the country had been ° 
watching a conspicuous example of this ingrained 
habit of manoeuvring round the Army in order to 
obtain party advantage. From 1912 onwards, until 
more interesting perplexities provided a distraction, 
a great part of the Liberal press and party had been 
actively engaged in the attempt to fix the Unionist 
party with responsibility for the proposals of the 
National Service League. The Opposition, it is 
hardly necessary to record, were innocent of this 
charge — criminally innocent ; but it was neverthe- 
less regarded as good party business to load them 
with the odium of ' conscription.' The ' blood- 
taxes,' as it was pointed out by one particularly 
zealous journal, would be no less useful than the 
6 food-taxes ' as an ' election cry,' which at this time — 
more than ever before — appeared to have become 
the be-all and end-all of party activities. 

It was obvious to the meanest capacity that 
these industrious politicians were not nearly so much 
concerned with the demerits, real or supposed, of 
National Service, as with making their opponents 
as unpopular as possible. In such an atmosphere 
of prejudice it would have required great courage 
and determination in a statesman to seek out and 
proclaim the true way to security, were it national 
service or anything else which entailed a sacrifice. 

Was it wonderful that when people examined 
the signs of the times in the early part of 1913, 



314 DEMOCRACY AND NATIONAL SERVICE 

Part iv. they should have found themselves oppressed by 
Chapter feelings of doubt and insecurity ? A huge German 

'_ military increase ; a desperate French effort in 

The British reply ; war loans (for they were nothing else) on a 

Army and ^ • i ,^ • i ,i 

the peace vast scale in both countries — what was the mean- 
of Europe. ing of it a]1 ? To w}lat extent was British safety 

jeopardised thereby ? 

To these questions there was no answer which 
carried authority ; the official oracles were dumb. 
We are a democratic country, and yet none of our 
rulers had ever yet spoken plainly to us. None of 
the Secretaries for War, none of the Prime Ministers 
since the beginning of the century, had ever stated 
the issue with uncompromising simplicity, as the 
case required. None of them had ever taken the 
country into his confidence, either as to the extent 
of the danger or as to the nature of the remedy. It 
is necessary to assume — in the light of subsequent 
events — that these statesmen had in fact realised 
the danger, and were not ignorant of the preparations 
which were required to forestall it. Certainly it 
is hard to believe otherwise ; but at times, remem- 
bering their speeches and their acts, one is inclined to 
give them the benefit, if it be a benefit, of the doubt. 

The question at issue was in reality a graver matter 
than the security of the United Kingdom or the 
British Empire. The outlook was wider even than 
this. The best guarantee for the preservation of 
the peace of Europe, and of the World, would have 
been a British army proportionate to our population 
and resources. There could be no doubt of this. 
For half a century or more we had, half unconsciously, 
bluffed Europe into the belief that we did in fact 
possess such an army ; but gradually it had become 



BRITAIN AND EUROPEAN INTERESTS 315 

plain that this was not the case. Since the Agadir Part iv. 
incident the real situation was apparent even to the Chapter 

man in the street — in Paris, Berlin, Brussels, the 

Hague, Vienna, Rome, and Petrograd — in every The British 
capital, indeed, save perhaps in London alone. the peace 

If England had possessed such an army as would 
have enabled her to intervene with effect in European 
affairs, she would almost certainly never have been 
called upon to intervene. 1 Peace in that case would 
have preserved itself. For Europe knew — not from 
our professions, but from the obvious facts, which 
are a much better assurance — that our army would 
never be used except for one purpose only, to maintain 
the balance of Power. She knew this to be our only 
serious concern ; and, except for the single nation 
which, at any given time, might be aiming at pre- 
dominance, it was also the most serious concern of 
the whole of Europe. She knew us to be disinterested, 
in the diplomatic sense, with regard to all other 
European matters. She knew that there was nothing 
in Europe which we wished to acquire, and nothing — 
save in the extreme south-west, a rock called Gib- 
raltar, and in the Mediterranean an island called 
Malta — which we held and were determined to main- 
tain. In the chancelleries of Europe all this was 
clearly recognised. And more and more it was 

1 This view was held by no one more strongly than by Lord Roberts. 
During the last five-and-twenty years the writer has probably seen as much 
of soldiers as falls to the lot of most civilians, but nowhere, during that 
period, from the late senior Field-Marshal downwards, has he ever en- 
countered that figment of the pacifist imagination of which we read so 
much during 1912-1914— "a military clique which desires to create a 
' conscript army on the European model for purposes of aggression on the 
' continent of Europe." The one thought of all soldiers was adequate 
defence. Their one concern was how to prevent, war. . . . M. Clemem eau 
once urged that Lord Roberts should receive the Nobel Peace Prize for his 
advocacy of ' conscription ' in England. This proposal was made quite 
seriously. 



316 DEMOCRACY AND NATIONAL SEKVICE 

Part iv. coming to be recognised also by the organs of public 
Chapter opinion on the Continent. 

The British The population of France is roughly forty millions ; 

the peace that of Germany, sixty-five millions ; that of the 
urope. United Kingdom, forty-five millions. As regards 
numbers of men trained to bear arms, France by 
1911 had already come to the end of her resources ; 
Germany had still considerable means of expansion ; 
Britain alone had not yet seriously attempted to 
put forth her strength. Had we done so in time 
the effect must have been final and decisive ; there 
would then have been full security against disturb- 
ance of the peace of Europe by a deliberately calculated 
war. 

Europe's greatest need therefore was that Britain 
should possess an army formidable not only in valour, 
but also in numbers : her greatest peril lay in the 
fact that, as to the second of these requirements, 
Britain was deficient. No power from the Atlantic 
seaboard to the Ural Mountains, save that one 
alone which contemplated the conquest and spolia- 
tion of its neighbours, would have been disquieted — 
or indeed anything else but reassured — had the British 
people decided to create such an army. For by 
reason of England's peculiar interests — or rather 
perhaps from her lack of all direct personal interests 
in European affairs, other than in peace and the 
balance of power — she was marked out as the natural 
mediator in Continental disputes. In these high 
perplexities, however, it is not the justice of the 
mediator which restrains aggression, so much as 
the fear inspired by his fleets and the strength of 
his battalions. 



CHAPTER II 

THE COMPOSITION OP THE BRITISH ARMY 

The doubt and anxiety of public opinion in 1912 PartIv. 
were not allayed when the strength and composition Chapter 
of the British Army came to be considered. IL 

Leaving out of account those troops which were Th e com- 
recruited and maintained in India, the Dominions, the British 
and the Dependencies, the actual number of British Army * 
regulars employed in garrison duty abroad was in 
round figures 125,000 men. The number in the 
United Kingdom was approximately the same ; but 
by no means the whole of these were fit to take the 
field. The total strength of the Regular Army in 
1912-1913 might therefore be taken at somewhere 
between 250,000 and 254,000 men, 1 of whom half 
were permanently out of this country, while from 
25,000 to 50,000 could not be reckoned on as avail- 
able in case of war, for the reason that they were 
either recent recruits or ' immatures.' 2 

1 These rough totals were approximately the same in the autumn of 
1912, and at the outbreak of war in July 1914. 

2 The exact number of men who could remain in the units when mobilised 
was difficult to assess, for the reason that it varied considerably according 
to the trooping season, which begins in August and ends in February. 
February was therefore the most unfavourable month for comparison, 
and it is probably not far from the truth to say that at that date 50,000 men 
out of our nominal home army were unavailable in case of war. Under 
the extreme stress of circumstances, it had recently been decided that boys 
of nineteen might servo in Europe in the event of war, so that a good many 

317 



318 DEMOCRACY AND NATIONAL SERVICE 

part iv. The reserves and additional troops wliicli would 
Chapter be called out in the event of a serious war were so 
IL different in character that it was impossible simply 
The com- to throw them into a single total, and draw conclusions 
theBritis°h therefrom according to the rules of arithmetic. For 
Army ' when people spoke of the Army Reserve, the Special 
Reserve, and the Territorial Army, they were talking 
of three things, the values of which were not at all 
comparable. The first were fully trained fighting 
soldiers ; the second were lads with a mere smatter- 
ing of their trade ; while the third were little more 
than an organised schedule of human material — 
mainly excellent — which would become available for 
training only at the outbreak of war, and whose 
liability for service was limited to home defence. 
The sum-total of these reserves and additional troops 
was roughly 450,000 men ; but this row of figures 
was entirely meaningless, or else misleading, until 
the significance of its various factors was grasped. 1 

The first of these categories, the Army Reserve, 
was the only one which could justly claim to rank 
as a true reserve — that is, as a fighting force, from 
the outbreak of war equal in calibre to the Continental 



' inimatures ' were now nominally ' mature.' Only nominally, however, 
for even a war minister could not alter the course of nature by a stroke 
of the pen. 

1 Without wearying the reader too much with figures the German 
strength may be briefly indicated. That country has a population roughly 
half as large again as our own (65 millions against 45). The total of fully 
trained men whom the German Government could mobilise at the declara- 
tion of war was something over 4,500,000. Of these some 2,400,000 com- 
posed the ' striking force ' ; the remaining 2,100,000 or thereabouts, the 
reserve for making good wastage of war. But in addition, Germany had 
scheduled and inscribed in her Ersatz, or recruiting reserve, and in the 
Landsturm, fully 5,000,000 untrained and partially trained men, with 
ample equipment and military instructors for them all. A large proportion 
of these would be enrolled on mobilisation, and would undertake garrison 
and other duties, for which they would be fitted after a short period of 
service, thus freeing all fully trained men for service in the field. 



THE THREE RESERVES 319 

troops against which it would be called upon to PartIV. 

take the field. Chapter 

The Army Reserve consisted of men who had J^_ 
served their full time in the Regular Army. They The com- 
were therefore thoroughly trained and disciplined, theBrftiah 
needing only a few days — or at most weeks — to rub Army- 
the rust off them. 1 Nominally their numbers were 
137,000 2 men ; but as over 8000 of these were living 
out of the United Kingdom the net remainder had 
to be taken at something under 130,000. Moreover, 
as the Army Reserve depended automatically upon 
the strength of the Regular Army, and as the strength 
of this had recently been reduced, it seemed neces- 
sarily to follow that ultimately there would be a 
considerable diminution. 

The second category to which the name of a 
reserve was given was the Special Reserve. This, 
however, was no true reserve like the first, for it was 
wholly unfit to take the field upon the outbreak of 
hostilities. It was the modern substitute for the 
Militia, and was under obligation to serve abroad in 
time of war. The term of enlistment was six years, 
and the training nominally consisted of six months 
in the first year, and one month in camp in each of 
the succeeding years. But in practice these con- 
ditions had been greatly relaxed. It was believed 
that, upon the average, the term of training amounted 
to even less than the proposals of the National Service 

1 For purposes of immediate mobilisation, however, Continental re- 
servists are superior to our own, because in the British Army they lose 
touch with their regiments, and in case of war will in many cases be serving 
with officers and comrades whom they know nothing about ; whereas in 
Germany (for example) they come up for periods of training with the 
regiments to which they belong. Also, at the outset, the proportion of 
reservists to serving soldiers will be much greater in our case. 

2 This was in 1912. Their numbers appear to have increased somewhat. 
In July 1911 they were something over 140,000. 



320 DEMOCRACY AND NATIONAL SERVICE 

Part iv. League, 1 which had been criticised from the official 

Chatoer standpoint — severely and not altogether unjustly — 

IL on the ground that they would not provide soldiers 

The com- fit to be drafted immediately into the fighting line. 

theBrftish Notwithstanding the inadequacy of its military 

Army. education, this Special Reserve was relied upon in 

some measure for making up the numbers of our 

Expeditionary Force 2 at the commencement of war, 

and individuals from it, and even in some cases units, 

would therefore have been sent out to meet the 

conscript armies of the Continent, to which they were 

inferior, not only in length and thoroughness of 

training, but also in age. It was important also to 

bear in mind that they would be led by comparatively 

inexperienced and untrained officers. The strength 

of the Special Reserve was approximately 58,000 3 

men, or lads. Under the most favourable view it 

was a corps of apprentices whose previous service 

had been of a very meagre and desultory character. 

The third category was the Territorial Army, 

whose term of service was four years and whose 

military training, even nominally, only consisted of 

fifteen days in camp each year, twenty drills the first 

year, and ten drills each year after that. In reality 

this training had, on the average, consisted of very 

much less. This force was not liable for service 

abroad, but only for home defence. 

The minimum strength of the Territorial Army 

1 Viz. four months for infantry and six for cavalry. 

2 Twenty-seven battalions of the Special Reserve were scheduled to go 
out as complete units for duty on lines of communication, etc. The report 
on recruiting for 1912 says that the great majority of recruits for the Special 
Reserve join between the ages of seventeen and nineteen. It is hardly neces- 
sary to point out the folly of putting boys of this age in a situation where 
they will be peculiarly liable to disease. Continental nations employ their 
oldest classes of reserves for these duties. 

8 In July 1914 about 61,000. 



THEIR VALUES AND TRAINING 321 

was estimated beforehand by Lord Haldane at PartIV. 
316,000 men ; but these numbers had never been Chapter 

reached. The approximate strength was only 

260,000 men, of whom only about half had qualified, Tkcom - 

. n • , . position of 

both by doing fifteen days in camp, and by passing the British 
an elementary test in musketry. 1 These numbers had n " y ' 
recently shown a tendency to shrink rather than swell. 2 

The value of the Territorial Army, therefore, was 
that of excellent, though in certain cases immature, 
material, available for training upon the outbreak 
of war. But in spite of its high and patriotic spirit 
it was wholly unfit to take the field against trained 
troops until it had undergone the necessary training. 

In the event of war we could not safely reckon 
upon being able to withdraw our garrisons from 
abroad. 3 Consequently, in the first instance, and 
until the Special Reserve and the Territorial Army 
had been made efficient, all we could reasonably 
depend upon for serious military operations, either at 
home or abroad, were that part of the Regular Army 
which was in the United Kingdom, and the Army 
Reserve. 

In round figures therefore our soldiers immediately 
available for a European war (i.e. that portion of 
the Regular Army which was stationed at home and 
the Army Reserve) amounted on mobilisation to 
something much under 250,000 men. Our apprentice 
troops (the Special Reserve), who were really con- 
siderably less than half-made, numbered something 

1 I.e. in the autumn of 1912. They were, therefore, 56,000 short of 
Lord Haldane's estimate. 

2 Latterly there was a slight improvement in recruiting. In July 1914 
the numbers (including permanent staff) were a little over 268,000 — 48,000 
short of Lord Haldane's estimate. 

3 The fact that in certain cases we did so withdraw our garrisons in 
1914-1915 without disaster does not invalidate this calculation. 



322 DEMOCRACY AND NATIONAL SERVICE 

Part iv. under 60,000 men. Our unmade raw material (the 
Chapter Territorial Army), excellent in quality and imme- 

'_ diately available for training, might be taken at 

The com- 260,000 men. 

position of 



the British 
Arm\-. 



The main consideration arising out of this analysis 
was of course the inadequacy of the British Army to 
make good the numerical deficiency of the Triple 
Entente in the Western theatre during the onset and 
the grip of war. Supposing England to be involved 
in a European war, which ran its course and was 
brought to a conclusion with the same swiftness 
which had characterised every other European 
war within the last half century, how were our 
&a7/-made and our immade troops to be rendered 
efficient in time to effect the result in any way 
whatsoever ? 

There was yet another consideration of great 
gravity. If our full Expeditionary Force were sent 
abroad we should have to strain our resources to the 
utmost to bring it up to its full nominal strength and 
keep it there. The wastage of war would necessarily 
be very severe in the case of so small a force ; especi- 
ally heavy in the matter of officers. Consequently, 
from the moment when this force set sail, there would 
be a dearth of officers in the United Kingdom 
competent to train the Special Reserve, the Territorial 
Army, and the raw recruits. Every regular and 
reserve officer in the country would be required in 
order to mobilise the Expeditionary Force, and keep 
it up to its full strength during the first six months. 
As things then stood there was a certainty — in case 
of war — of a very serious shortage of officers of suitable 
experience and age to undertake the duties, which 



SCARCITY OF OFFICERS 323 

were required under our recently devised military partIV. 
system. 1 chapter 

Half -made soldiers and raw material alike would j^_ 
therefore be left to the instruction of amateur or The com- 
hastily improvised officers — zealous and intelligent th?Britkh 
men without a doubt ; but unqualified, owing to their Army ' 
own lack of experience, for training raw troops, so as 
to place them rapidly on an equality with the armies 
to which they would find themselves opposed. What 
the British system contemplated, was as if you were 
to send away the headmaster, and the assistant- 
masters, and the under-masters, leaving the school 
in charge of pupil -teachers. 

In no profession is the direct personal influence 
of teaching and command more essential than in 
the soldier's. In none are good teachers and leaders 
more able to shorten and make smooth the road to 
confidence and efficiency. Seeing that we had chosen 
to depend so largely upon training our army after 
war began, it might have been supposed, that at least 
we should have taken care to provide ourselves with 
a sufficient number of officers and non-commissioned 
officers, under whose guidance the course of education 
would be made as thorough and as short as possible. 
This was not the case. Indeed the reverse was the 
case. Instead of possessing a large number of officers 
and non-commissioned officers, beyond those actually 
required at the outbreak of war for the purpose of 

1 The experience of the past few mouths makes this criticism appear 
absurd — in its understatement. But of course what was contemplated 
in 1912-13 was not anything upon the gigantic scale of our present 
' New Army ' ; but only (a) the Special Reserve, (6) the Territorial Army, 
possibly doubled in numbers during the first six months, and (c) fresh 
recruits for the Regular Army upon a very considerably enhanced scale. 
But even for these purposes which were foreseen, the provision of officers was 
quite inadequate ; so inadequate indeed as to appear from the soldier's 
point of view in the light of a parliamentary farce. 



324 DEMOCRACY AND NATIONAL SERVICE 

part iv. starting with, and repairing the wastage in the 
Chapter Expeditionary Force, we were actually faced, as 
IL things then stood, with a serious initial shortage of 
The com- the officers required for this one purpose alone. 
theBritiSi Lord Haldane in framing the army system which 
Army ' is associated with his name chose to place his trust 
in a small, highly -trained expeditionary force for 
immediate purposes, to be supplemented at a later 
date — if war were obliging enough to continue for so 
long — by a new army of which the Territorials formed 
the nucleus, and which would not begin its real train- 
ing until after the outbreak of hostilities. Under 
the most favourable view this plan was a great gamble ; 
for it assumed that in the war which was contem- 
plated, the onset and the grip periods would be passed 
through without crushing disaster, and that England 
would, in due course, have an opportunity of making 
her great strength felt in the drag. It will be said 
that Lord Haldane's assumption has been justified 
by recent events, and in a sense this is true ; but by 
what merest hair-breadth escape, by what sacrifices 
on the part of our Allies, at what cost in British lives, 
with what reproach to our national credit, we have 
not yet had time fully to realise. 

But crediting Lord Haldane's system, if we may, 
with an assumption which has been proved correct, 
we have reason to complain that he did not act boldly 
on this assumption and make his scheme, such as it 
was, complete and effective. For remember, it was 
contemplated that the great new army, which was 
to defend the existence of the British Empire in the 
final round of war, should be raised and trained upon 
the voluntary principle — upon a wave of patriotic 
enthusiasm — after war broke out. This new army 



WANT OF STORES AND PLANS 325 

would have to be organised, clothed, equipped, armed, part iv. 
and supplied with ammunition. The ' voluntary Chapter 
principle ' could not apply to matters of this kind. _^l_ 
It might therefore have been expected that stores Thecom- 
would be accumulated, and plans worked out upon the British 
the strictest business principles, with philosophic Army ' 
thoroughness, and in readiness for an emergency 
which might occur at any moment. 

Moral considerations which precluded ' conscrip- 
tion ' did not, and could not, apply to inanimate 
material of war, or to plans and schedules of army 
corps and camps, or to a body of officers enlisted of 
their own free will. It may have been true that to 
impose compulsory training would have offended 
the consciences of free-born Britons ; but it was 
manifestly absurd to pretend that the accumulation 
of adequate stores of artillery and small arms, of 
shells and cartridges, of clothing and equipment, 
could offend the most tender conscience — could 
offend anything indeed except the desire of the 
tax-payer to pay as few taxes as possible. 

If the British nation chose to bank on the as- 
sumption, that it would have the opportunity given 
it of ' making good ' during the drag of war, it should 
have been made to understand what this entailed 
in the matter of supplies ; and most of all in reserve 
of officers. All existing forces should at least have 
been armed with the most modern weapons. There 
should have been arms and equipment ready for the 
recruits who would be required, and who were relied 
upon to respond to a national emergency. There 
should have been ample stores of every kind, includ- 
ing artillery, and artillery ammunition, for that 
Expeditionary Force upon which, during the first 



326 DEMOCRACY AND NATIONAL SERVICE 

part iv. six months we had decided to risk our national 

Chapter safety. 

1_ But, in fact, we were provided fully in none of 

The com- these respects. And least of all were we provided in 

position of ■*■ -J- 

the British the matter of officers. There was no case of conscience 
at stake; but only the question of a vote in the 
House of Commons. We could have increased our 
establishment of officers by a vote ; we could have 
laid in stores of ammunition, of clothing, of equipment 
by a vote. But the vote was not asked for — it might 
have been unpopular — and therefore Lord Haldane's 
scheme — in its inception a gamble of the most 
hazardous character — was reduced to a mere make- 
believe, for the reason that its originator lacked 
confidence to back his own ' fancy.' 

Looking back at the Agadir incident, it seemed 
plain enough, from a soldier's point of view, that the 
British Expeditionary Force was inadequate, in a 
purely military sense, to redress the adverse balance 
against the French, and beat back a German invasion. 
The moral effect, however, of our assistance would 
undoubtedly have been very great, in encouraging 
France and Belgium by our comradeship in arms, 
and in discouraging Germany, by making clear to 
her the firmness of the Triple Entente. 

But by the summer of 1914 — three years later — 
this position had undergone a serious change. In 
a purely military sense, the value of such aid as it had 
been in our power to send three years earlier, was 
greatly diminished. The increase in the German 
striking force over that of France, which had taken 
effect since 1911, was considerably greater than the 
« total numbers of the army which we held prepared 



COST OF FULL INSURANCE 327 

for foreign service. This was fully understood partIv. 
abroad ; and the knowledge of it would obviously Chapter 
diminish the moral as well as the material effect of IL 
our co-operation. The 



cum- 



in order that the combined forces of France and the British 
England might have a reasonable chance of holding Army " 
their own 1 against Germany, until Russian pressure 
began to tell, the smallest army which we ought to 
have been able to put in the field, and maintain there 
for six months, was not less than twice that of the 
existing Expeditionary Force. From a soldier's point 
of view 320,000 men instead of 160,000 was the very 
minimum with which there might be a hope of with- 
standing the German onset ; and for the purpose of 
bringing victory within sight it would have been 
necessary to double the larger of these figures. In 
order to reach the end in view, Britain ought to have 
possessed a striking force at least half as large as that 
of France, in round figures between 600,000 and 
750,000 men. 

This was how the matter appeared in 1912, viewed 
from the standpoint of a soldier who found himself 
asked to provide a force sufficient, not for conquest — 
not for the purpose of changing the map of Europe to 
the advantage of the Triple Entente — but merely in 
order to safeguard the independence of Belgium and 
Holland, to prevent France from being crushed by 
Germany, 2 and to preserve the security of the British 
Empire. 

1 I. p.. of holding the Germans at the French frontier and keeping them 
out of Belgium should they attempt to invade that country. 

2 At the time these totals were worked out the results appeared very 
startling to the lay mind. Recent experience, however, has proved that 
the soldiers who worked them out were right when they described them 
as ' modest estimates.' 



328 DEMOCRACY AND NATIONAL SERVICE 

part iv. The political question which presented itself to 

Chapter the minds of enquirers was this — If the British nation 

IL were told frankly the whole truth about the 

The com- Army, would it not conceivably decide that com- 

theBritish plete insurance was a better bargain than half 

Army ' measures ? What force ought we to be prepared to 

send to France during the first fortnight of war in 

order to make it a moral certainty that Germany 

would under no circumstances venture to attack 

France ? 

To questions of this sort it is obviously impossible 
to give certain and dogmatic answers. There are 
occasions when national feeling runs away with 
policy and overbears considerations of military 
prudence. The effects of sudden panic, of a sense of 
bitter injustice, of blind pride or overweening con- 
fidence, are incalculable upon any mathematical basis. 
But regarding the matter from the point of view of 
the Kaiser's general staff, whose opinion is usually 
assumed to be a determining factor 'in German 
enterprises, a British Expeditionary Force, amount- 
ing to something over 600,000 men, would have 
been sufficient to prevent the occurrence of a 
coolly calculated war. And in the event of war 
arising out of some uncontrollable popular impulse, a 
British Army of this size would have been enough, 
used with promptitude and under good leadership, to 
secure the defeat of the aggressor. 

An Expeditionary Force of 320,000 men would 
mean fully trained reserves of something over 210,000 
in order to make good the wastage of war during a 
campaign of six months. Similarly an Expeditionary 
Force of 600,000 would mean reserves of 400,000. In 
the former case a total of 530,000 trained soldiers, 



LIMITS OF VOLUNTARY ENLISTMENT 329 

and in the latter a total of 1,000,000, would therefore part iv. 
have been required. 1 Chapter 

Even the smaller of these proposed increases _^_ 
in the Expeditionary Force would have meant The com- 
doubling the number of trained soldiers in the British the British 
Army ; the larger would have meant multiplying it Army ' 
by four. Under what system would it be possible 
to achieve these results if public opinion should 
decide that either of them was necessary to national 
security ? The answer was as easy to give as the 
thing itself seemed hard to carry out. 

It had become clear a good deal earlier than the 
year 1914 that the limit of voluntary enlistment, 
under existing conditions, had already been reached 
for the Regular as well as the Territorial Army. If, 
therefore, greater numbers were required they could 
only be provided by some form of compulsory service. 
There was no getting away from this hard fact which 
lay at the very basis of the situation. 

If security were the object of British policy, the 
Expeditionary Force must be fully trained before 
war broke out. It would not serve the purpose for 
which it was intended, if any part oi' it, or of its 
reserves, needed to be taught their trade after war 
began. Thoroughness of training — which must under 
ordinary circumstances 2 be measured by length of 

1 In this calculation the wastage of war during the first six months has 
been taken at two-thirds. With the smaller force of 160,000 men, practically 
the whole army would be in the fighting line all the time, and the wastage 
consequently would be heavier. It could not wisely be assumed at less 
than three-fourths for the same period. 

2 Obviously the better and more experienced the officers, the higher tho 
quality of the recruits, and tho keener their spirit, the more quickly the 
desired result will be achieved. The last two have been very potent factors 
in the rapid education of our present ' New Army.' In a time of abnormal 
patriotic impulse, the length of time required will be much shortened. Since 
August 1914 the lack of experienced officers has been the great difficulty. 



330 DEMOCRACY AND NATIONAL SERVICE 

Part iv. training — appeared to be a factor of vital importance. 

Chapter Given anything like equality in equipment, general- 

1 ' ship, and position, men who had undergone a full two 

The com- years' course — like the conscript armies of the Con- 
position of. - - 1 • «» 1 ' • "I i» ■ 

the British tment — ought to have no dimculty in defeating a 
Army ' much larger force which had less discipline and 
experience. 

The lessons of the South African War were in 
many ways very useful ; but the praise lavishly, and 
justly, given to volunteer battalions by Lord Roberts 
and other distinguished commanders, needed to be 
studied in the light of the circumstances, and these 
were of a peculiar character. For one thing our 
antagonists, the Boers, were not trained troops, 
and moreover, their policy to a large extent was to 
weary us out, by declining decisive action and 
engaging us in tedious pursuits. Our volunteers, 
for the most part, were picked men. Although only 
half -trained — perhaps in the majority of cases wholly 
untrained — circumstances in this case permitted of 
their being given the time necessary for gaining 
experience in the field before being required to fight. 
This was an entirely different state of affairs from 
what might be looked for in a European war, in a 
densely peopled country, covered with a close net- 
work of roads and railways — a war in which great 
masses of highly disciplined soldiers would be hurled 
against one another systematically, upon a settled 
plan, until at last superiority at one point or another 
should succeed in breaking down resistance. The 
South African war and a European war were two 
things not in the least comparable. 

Before the nation could be expected to come to a 
final decision with regard to the insurance premium 



Army. 



THE PEOPLE HAD A RIGHT TO KNOW 331 

which it was prepared to pay, it would require to be part iv. 
fully informed upon a variety of subordinate points Chapter 
of much importance. Cost was a matter which could _^_ 
not be put lightly on one side ; our peculiar obligations The com- 
in regard to foreign garrisons was another ; the the British 
nature of our industrial system was a third ; and 
there were many besides. But the main and govern- 
ing consideration, if we wished to retain our in- 
dependence as a nation, was — what provisions were 
adequate to security ? The people wanted to know, 
and had a right to know, the facts. And in the end, 
with all due regard for our governors, and for the 
self-importance of political parties, it was not either 
for ministers or partisans to decide this question on 
behalf of the people ; it was for the people, on full 
and honest information, to decide it for themselves. 



CHAPTER III 

lord roberts's warnings 

Part iv. Lord Roberts addressed many meetings in favour 
Chapter of National Service during the years which followed 

'_ his return from South Africa in 1905 ; but the first 

Lord f fog speeches to arrest widespread popular atten- 
wamings. tion was delivered in the Free Trade Hall at Man- 
chester, on October 22, 1912. A popular audience 
filled the building to overflowing, listened with 
respect, and appeared to accept his conclusions with 
enthusiasm. His words carried far beyond the walls 
of the meeting-place, and caused something approach- 
ing a sensation, or, as some thought, a scandal, in 
political circles. 

Of the commentators upon this speech the greater 
part were Liberals, and these condemned his utter- 
ances with unanimity in somewhat violent language. 
Official Unionism was dubious, uncomfortable, and 
disapproving : it remained for the most part dumb. 
A few voices were raised from this quarter in open 
reprobation ; a few others proclaimed their independ- 
ence of party discipline and hastened to approve 
his sentiments. 

There was no doubt of one thing — Lord Roberts's 
speech had at last aroused public interest. For 
the first time during the National Service agitation 

332 



NEED FOR NATIONAL SERVICE 333 

blood had been drawn. This was mainly due to the Part iv. 
object-lesson in the consequences of military un- Chapter 

preparedness, which the first Balkan War was just '_ 

then unfolding before the astonished eyes of Europe. Lord 

Roberts s 

In addition, those people, who for a year past had warnings. 
been puzzling their heads over the true meaning 
of the Agadir crisis, had become impressed with 
the urgent need for arriving at a clear decision 
with regard to the adequacy of our national 
defences. 

The speech was a lucid and forcible statement 
of the need for compulsory military training. It 
was interesting reading at the time it was delivered, 
and in some respects it is even more interesting to-day. 
It was compactly put together, not a thing of patches. 
A man who read any part of it would read it all. 
Yet in accordance with custom, controversy raged 
around three isolated passages. 

The first of these runs as follows : "In the year 
1912, our German friends, I am well aware, do 
not — at least in sensible circles — assert dogmatically 
that a war with Great Britain will take place this 
year or next ; but in their heart of hearts they 
know, every man of them, that — just as in 1866 
and just as in 1870 — war will take place the instant 
the German forces by land and sea are, by their 
superiority at every point, as certain of victory as 
anything in human calculation can be made certain. 
Germany strikes when Germany's hour has struck. 
That is the time-honoured policy of her Foreign 
Office. That was the policy relentlessly pursued 
by Bismarck and Moltke in 1866 and 1870. It 
has been her policy decade by decade since that 
date. It is her policy at the present hour." 



334 DEMOCRACY AND NATIONAL SERVICE 



Part IV. 

Chapter 
III. 

Lord 

Roberts's 
warnings. 



The second passage followed upon the first : 
"It is an excellent policy. It is or should be the 
' policy of every nation prepared to play a great 
' part in history. Under that policy Germany has, 
' within the last ten years, sprung, as at a bound, 
' from one of the weakest of naval powers to the 
' greatest naval power, save one, upon this globe." 

The third passage came later : " Such, gentlemen, 
' is the origin, and such the considerations which 
' have fostered in me the growth of this conviction — 
' the conviction that in some form of National Service 
' is the only salvation of this Nation and this Empire. 
' The Territorial Force is now an acknowledged 
' failure — a failure in discipline, a failure in numbers, 
' a failure in equipment, a failure in energy." * 

The accuracy of the first and third of these state- 
ments now stands beyond need of proof. It was 
not truer that Germany would strike so soon as her 
rulers were of opinion that the propitious hour had 
struck, than it was that, when the British Govern- 
ment came to take stock of their resources at the 
outbreak of war, they would find the Territorial Army 
to be lacking in the numbers, equipment, training, 
and discipline, which alone could have fitted it for 
its appointed task — the defence of our shores against 
invasion. Slowly, and under great difficulties, and 
amid the gravest anxieties these defects had subse- 
quently to be made good, hampering the while our 
military operations in the critical sphere. 

The second statement was of a different character, 
and taken by itself, without reference to the context, 
lent itself readily to misconception as well as mis- 

1 Manchester, October 22, 1912. Quoted from Lord Roberts's Message, 
to the Nation (Murray), pp„ 4-6 and p. 12. The date, however, is there given 
wrongly as October 25* 



POINTS OF CRITICISM 335 

construction. A certain number of critics, no doubt, Part iv. 
actually believed, a still larger number affected to Chapter 
believe, that Lord Roberts was here advocating the ' 

creation of a British army, for the purpose of attack- Lord 
ing Germany, without a shred of justification, and at warnings. 
the first favourable moment. 

The whole tenor of this speech, however, from 
the first line to the last, made it abundantly clear 
that in Lord Roberts's opinion Britain could have 
neither motive nor object for attacking Germany ; 
that the sole concern of England and of the British 
Empire with regard to Germany was, how we might 
defend our possessions and secure ourselves against 
her schemes of aggression. 

Lord Roberts, however, had in fact pronounced 
the intentions which he attributed to Germany to 
be ' an excellent policy,' and had thereby seemed 
to approve, and recommend for imitation, a system 
which was revolting to the conscience of a Christian 
community. 

The idea that Lord Roberts could have had any 
such thoughts in his mind seemed merely absurd to 
any one who knew him ; nay, it must also have 
seemed inconceivable to any one who had taken 
the trouble to read the speech itself in an un- 
prejudiced mood. To an ordinary man of sense it 
did not need Lord Roberts's subsequent letter of 
explanation * to set his opinions in their true light. 
It was clear that his object, in this ' peccant 
passage,' had merely been to avoid a pharisaical 
condemnation of German methods and ambitions, 
and to treat that country as a worthy, as well as a 
formidable, antagonist. Being a soldier, however, — 

1 Manchester Guardian, November 5, 1912. 



336 DEMOCRACY AND NATIONAL SERVICE 

part iv. not a practised platform orator, alive to the dangers 

Chapter of too generous concession — he went too far. The 
in • 
1 words were unfortunately chosen, seeing that so 

Lord manv critics were on the watch, not to discover the 

Roberts s "" 

warnings, true meaning of the speech, but to pounce on any 
slip which might be turned to the disadvantage of 
the speaker. 

At first there was an attempt on the part of certain 
London * Liberal journals to boycott this speech. 
Very speedily, however, it seemed to dawn upon 
them that they had greater advantages to gain by 
denouncing it. A few days later, accordingly, the 
torrent of condemnation was running free. The 
ablest attack appeared in the Nation, 2 and as this 
pronouncement by the leading Radical weekly was 
quoted with approval by the greater part of the 
ministerial press throughout the country, it may 
fairly be taken as representing the general view 
of the party. 

The article was headed A Diabolical Speech, 
and its contents fulfilled the promise of the title. 
" There ought," said the writer, "to be some means 
' of bringing to book a soldier, in the receipt of 
' money from the State, who speaks of a friendly 
1 Power as Lord Roberts spoke of Germany." He 
was accused roundly of predicting and encourag- 
ing a vast and ' hideous conflict ' between the 
two countries. Lord Roberts was a ' successful ' 3 

1 This was not so, however, with the Liberal newspaper of greatest 
influence in the United Kingdom — the Manchester Guardian — which gave a 
full and prominent report of Lord Roberts's meeting. This journal is 
honourably free from any suspicion of using the suppression of news as a 
political weapon. 

2 October 26, 1912. Like the Manchester Guardian, the Nation made 
no attempt to boycott the speech. 

3 ' Successful,' not ' distinguished ' or ' able ' is the word. The amiable 
stress would appear to be on luck rather than merit. 



A RADICAL ATTACK 337 

soldier ; but ' without training in statesmanship.' part iv. 
He ' had never shown any gift for it.' His was Chapter 

' an average Tory intellect.' He was a ' complete '_ 

contrast ' to Wellington, who possessed two great Lori1 

. Roberts's 

qualities ; for " he set a high value on peace, and warnings. 

1 he knew how to estimate and bow to the governing 

' forces of national policy. . . . Lord Roberts pos- 

' sesses neither of these attributes. He is a mere 

' jingo in opinion and character, and he interprets 

' the life and interests of this nation and this Empire 

* by the crude lusts and fears which haunt the un- 

' imaginative soldier's brain." 

We may pause at this breathing-place to take 
note of the healing influences of time. Radical 
journalists of 1832, and thereabouts, were wont to 
say very much the same hard things of the Duke 
of Wellington, as those of 1912 saw fit to apply to 
Earl Roberts. . . . We may also remark in passing, 
upon the errors to which even the most brilliant 
of contemporary judgments are liable. There has 
never been a man in our time who set a higher value 
on peace than Lord Roberts did. He realised, 
however, not only the intrinsic value of peace, but 
its market cost. His real crime, in the eyes of pacifists, 
was that he stated publicly, as often as he had the 
chance, what price we must be prepared to pay, if 
we wanted peace and not war. It was in this sense, 
no doubt, that he did not know ' how to estimate and 
' bow to the governing forces of national policy.' His 
blunt warnings broke in rudely and crudely upon the 
comfortable discourse of the three counsellors — Simple, 
Sloth, and Presumption, who, better than any others, 
were skilled in estimating the ' governing forces,' and 
the advantages to be gained by bowing to them. 

z 



III. 

Lord 

Roberts's 



338 DEMOCRACY AND NATIONAL SERVICE 

Part iv. The writer in the Nation then proceeded to riddle 
Chapter Lord Roberts's theories of defence. " He desires 
' us to remain a ' free nation ' in the same breath 
'that he invites us to come under the yoke of con- 
wammgs. ' scription " — intolerable, indeed, that the citizens 
of a free nation should be ordered to fit themselves 
for defending their common freedom — " conscription, 

* if you please, for the unheard-of purpose of overseas 

* service in India and elsewhere. ..." This invita- 
tion does not seem to be contained in this, or any 
other of Lord Roberts's speeches ; but supposing it to 
have been given, it was not altogether ' unheard-of,' 
seeing that, under the law of conscription prevalent 
(for example) in Germany, conscript soldiers can be 
sent to Palestine, or tropical Africa as lawfully as into 
Luxemburg, Poland, or France. According to the 
Nation, the true theory of defence was Sea Power ; 
but this, it appeared, could not be relied on for all 
time. ..." While our naval monopoly — like our 

commercial monopoly — cannot exist for ever, our 

sea power and our national security depend on our 

ability to crush an enemy's fleet. . . . We were never 

so amply iDsured — so over-insured — against naval 

disaster as we are to-day." 

" Lord Roberts's proposition, therefore," the writer 

continued, " is merely foolish ; it is his way of 

' commending it, which is merely wicked. He speaks 

' of war as certain to take place ' the instant ' the 

' German forces are assured of ' superiority at every 

' point,' and he discovers that the motto of German 

' foreign policy is that Germany strikes when Germany's 

1 hour has struck. Germany does not happen to 

' have struck anybody since 1870, and she struck 

' then to secure national unity, and to put an end to 



A LIBERAL ATTACK 339 

the standing menace of French imperialism. Since part iv. 
then she has remained the most peaceful and the Chapter 
most self-contained, though doubtless not the most ^_ 
sympathetic, member of the European family. . . . Lord 
Germany, the target of every cheap dealer in historic warnings. 
slapdash, is in substance the Germany of 1870 " 
i.e. in extent of territory), " with a great industrial 
dominion superadded by the force of science and 
commercial enterprise. That is the story across 
which Lord Roberts scrawls his ignorant libel. . . . 
By direct implication he invites us to do to Germany 
what he falsely asserts she is preparing to do to 
us. These are the morals, fitter for a wolf -pack 
than for a society of Christian men, commended 
as ' excellent policy ' to the British nation in the 
presence of a Bishop of the Anglican Church." 
This was very vigorous writing ; nor was there 
the slightest reason to suspect its sincerity. In the 
nature of man there is a craving to believe ; and if 
a man happens to have his dwelling-place in a world 
of illusion and unreality, it is not wonderful that he 
should believe in phantoms. The credulity of the 
Nation might appear to many people to amount 
to fanaticism ; but its views were fully shared, though 
less tersely stated, by the whole Liberal party, 
by the greater proportion of the British people, 
and not inconceivably by the bulk of the Unionist 
opposition as well. The Government alone, who had 
learned the true facts from Lord Haldane eight 
months earlier, knew how near Lord Roberts's warn- 
ings came to the mark. 

This article set the tone of criticism. The Man- 
chester Guardian protested against the " insinuation 
1 that the German Government's views of international 



340 DEMOCRACY AND NATIONAL SERVICE 



Part IV. 

Chapter 
III. 

Lord 

Roberts's 

•warnings. 



policy are less scrupulous and more cynical than 
those of other Governments." Germany has never 
been accused with justice " of breaking her word, 
of disloyalty to her engagements, or of insincerity. 
Prussia's character among nations is, in fact, not 
very different from the character which Lancashire 
men give to themselves as compared with other 
Englishmen. It is blunt, straightforward, and 
unsentimental. . . ." How foolish, moreover, are 
our fears of Germany when we come to analyse them. 

We have no territory that she could take, except, 
in tropical Africa, which no sane man would go to 
war about. Our self-governing colonies could not 
in any case be held by force ; and Canada is pro- 
tected in addition by the Monroe doctrine. Egypt 
is not ours to cede. Malta could not be had 

without war with Italy nor India without war with 
' Russia." * 

This was a proud statement of the basis of British 
security, and one which must have warmed the 
hearts, and made the blood of Cromwell and Chatham 
tingle in the shades. Egypt, which we had rescued 
from a chaos of civil war, bankruptcy, and corruption, 
which during more than thirty years we had adminis- 
tered as just stewards for the benefit of her people, 
which we had saved from conquest and absorption 
by savage hordes — Egypt was not ours to cede. 
For the rest our dependencies were not worth taking 
from us, while our ' colonies ' could defend themselves. 
By the grace of Italy's protection we should be 
secured in the possession of Malta. India would 
be preserved to us by the goodwill of Russia, and 
Canada by the strong arm of the United States. . . . 

1 Manchester Guardian, October 28, 1912. 



A UNIONIST ATTACK 341 

Such at that time were the views of the Liberal partIV. 
journal foremost in character and ability. Chapter 

Somewhat later the Daily News took the field, '_ 

making up for lost time by an exuberance of mis- Lord 

construction. ..." The whole movement as repre- warnings. 

' sented by the National Service League is definitely 

' unmasked as an attempt to get up, not defence, but 

' an invasion of German territory. This discovery, 

' which for years has been suspected, is most valuable 

' as showing up the real object of the League, with its 

' glib talk about military calisthenics. Lord Roberts 

1 may have been indiscreet, but at least he has 

* made it clear that what the League wants is war." 1 

On the same day, in order that the Liberals 
might not have a monopoly of reprobation, the 
Evening Standard, in an article entitled A Word 
with Lord Roberts, rated him soundly for having 
" made an attack upon Germany and an attack 
1 upon the Territorial Force. ..." "It is mere 
' wanton mischief-making for a man with Lord 
1 Roberts's unequalled prestige to use words which 
1 must drive every German who reads them to 
' exasperation." And yet no signs whatsoever were 
forthcoming that so much as a single Teuton had 
been rendered desperate, or had taken the words 
as in the least degree uncomplimentary. Up to the 
day of his death — and indeed after his death 2 — 
Lord Roberts was almost the only Englishman of 
his time of whom Germans spoke with consistent 
respect. ..." Do not," continues this lofty and 
sapient mentor, " Do not let us talk as if the Kaiser 
' could play the part of a Genghis Khan or an Attila, 
' ravening round the world at the head of armed 

1 Dailv Neivs, October 30, 1912. a See Preface. 



342 DEMOCRACY AND NATIONAL SERVICE 

part iv. ' hordes to devour empires and kingdoms." * And 

Chapter yet how otherwise has the whole British Press been 

'_ talking ever since the middle of August 1914 ? If 

Lord during this period of nine months, the Evening 

Roberts's ox . 

warnings. Standard has kept all reference to Attila and his 
Huns out of its columns, its continence is unique. 

It would serve no useful purpose to set out further 
items of criticism and abuse from the leader and 
correspondence columns of newspapers, or from the 
speeches of shocked politicians. The Nation, the 
Manchester Guardian, and the Daily News are entitled, 
between them, to speak for the Liberal party; and 
if it cannot be said that the Evening Standard is 
quite similarly qualified in respect of the Unionists, 
there is still no doubt that the views which it expressed 
with so much vigour, prescience, and felicity were 
held by many orthodox members of its party. 

Colonel Bromley-Davenport, for example, who 
had been Financial Secretary to the War Office in the 
late Unionist Government, spoke out strongly against 
Lord Roberts's comments upon the efficiency of the 
Territorial Force. ' Compulsory service,' in his 
opinion, ' was not necessary. . . .' And then, with 
a burst of illuminating candour — " Which of the 
great parties in the state would take up compulsory 
service and fight a general election upon it ? The 
answer was that neither of the parties would ; 
and to ask for compulsory military service was 
like crying for the moon." 2 The power of any 
proposal for winning elections was to be the touchstone 
of its truth. It would be impossible to state more 
concisely the attitude of the orthodox politician. 

1 Evening Standard, October 30, 1912. 
z Morning Post, October 30, 1912. 



MINISTERIAL ATTACKS 343 

Which party, indeed, we may well ask, would have partIV. 
fought a general election on anything, however chapter 
needful, unless it hoped to win on it ? m ' 

The attitude of Ministers, however, with regard Lord 
to Lord Roberts's speech is much more worthy of warnings. 
remark than that of independent journalists and 
members of Parliament. For the Government knew 
several very important things which, at that time, 
were still hidden from the eyes of ordinary men. 

It was eight months since Lord Haldane had re- 
turned from Germany, concealing, under a smiling 
countenance and insouciant manner, a great burden of 
care at his heart. If on his return he spoke cheerily 
on public platforms about the kindness of his enter- 
tainment at Berlin, and of the greatness and goodness 
of those with whom he had there walked and talked, 
this was merely in order that his fellow-countrymen 
might not be plunged in panic or despondency. He 
had learned the mind of Germany, and it was no 
light lesson. He had imparted his dreadful secret 
to his colleagues, and we have learned lately from 
Mr. Asquith himself what that secret was. . . . The 
rulers of Germany, ' to put it quite plainly,' had 
asked us for a free hand to overbear and dominate 
the European world, whenever they deemed the 
opportunity favourable. They had demanded this 
of the astounded British emissary, " at a time when 
' Germany was enormously increasing both her 
' aggressive and defensive resources, and especially 
1 upon the sea." To such a demand but one answer 
was possible, and that answer the British Government 
had promptly given — so we are led to infer — in clear 
and ringing tones of scorn. 1 

1 Mr. Asquith at Cardiff, October 2, 1914. 



344 DEMOCRACY AND NATIONAL SERVICE 

Part iv. The Government knew for certain what nobody 
Chapter else did. They knew what the aims of Germany 

'_ were, and consequently they knew that Lord Roberts 

Lord , had spoken nothing but the truth. 

Roberts s 

warnings. And yet, strange to relate, within a few days we 
find Mr. Runciman, a member of the Cabinet, adminis- 
tering a severe castigation to Lord Roberts. The 
Manchester speech was " not only deplorable and 
' pernicious,' but likewise ' dangerous/ If it was 
resented in Germany, Mr. Runciman ' would like 
' Germany to know that it is resented no less in 
' England. . . ." Lord Roberts had been a great 
organiser of the National Service League, the object 
of which was ' practically conscription ' ; but " he 
* knows little of England, and certainly little of the 
' North of England, if he imagines we are ever likely 
' to submit to conscription " — not even apparently 
(for there are no reservations) as an alternative to 
conquest; or as a security against murder, arson, 
and rape. ..." War is only inevitable when states- 
men cannot find a way round, or through, difficulties 
that may arise ; or are so wicked that they prefer 
the hellish method of war to any other method of 
solution ; or are so weak as to allow soldiers, arma- 
ment makers, or scaremongers to direct their 
policy." 1 Lord Roberts was not, of course, an 
armament maker, but he was a scaremonger and a 
soldier, and as such had no right to state his views 
as to how peace might be kept. 

When Sir Edward Grey was asked if any repre- 
sentation had been addressed by Germany to the 

1 Mr. Runciman at Elland, Manchester Guardian, October 26, 1912. 
Sir Walter Runciman, the father of this speaker, appears to be made of sterner 
stuff. After the Scarborough raid he denounced the Germans as " heinous 
polecats." 



MR. ACLAND'S PERSISTENCY 345 

Foreign Office with reference to Lord Roberts's part iv. 
utterances, lie deprecated, with frigid discretion, the Chapter 

idea that either Government should make official 1 

representation to the other about ' unwise or pro- Lord > 
' vocative speeches.' 1 When Sir William Byles warnings. 
plied the Secretary of State for War, Colonel Seely, 
with questions as to the revocability of Lord Roberts's 
pension, the answer was solemn and oracular, but 
no rebuke was administered to the interrogator. 2 

But perhaps the most puzzling thing of all, is the 
persistency with which Mr. Acland (Sir Edward Grey's 
Under-Secretary) pursued Lord Roberts for some 
three weeks after the rest were finished with him. 
It might have been expected that Mr. Acland's chief, 
who knew ' the dreadful secret,' would have curbed 
his subordinate's excess of zeal. 

Mr. Acland distorted the Manchester speech into 
an appeal to the British people to put themselves 
"in a position to strike at the Germans, and to 
' smash them in a time of profound peace, and without 
' cause." And this fanciful gloss he rightly denounces, 
in accents which remind us not a little of the Reverend 
Robert Spalding, as ' nothing less than a wicked 
' proposal.' 3 ... For England to adopt compulsory 
military service would be "an utterly criminal and 
' provocative proceeding against other countries of the 
' world. . . ." Here, indeed, is much food for wonder. 
What single country of the world would have regarded 
the adoption of national service by England as 
' provocative ' ? What single country, except 
Germany, would even have objected to it ? And 
what more right would Germany have had to object 

1 Times, Parliamentary Report, October 30, 1912. 

2 Ibid. November 1, 1912. 

3 Mr. Acland at Taunton, the Times, November 5. 1912. 



Eoberts's 
warnings 



346 DEMOCRACY AND NATIONAL SERVICE 

Part iv. to our possessing a formidable army, than we had 
Chapter right to object to her possessing a formidable 

IIL navy ? 
Lord When some days later Mr. Acland is reproached 

with having misrepresented Lord Roberts's original 
statement, he replies loftily that he " was justified 
' at the time in supposing that this was his real 
' meaning." x One wonders why. Lord Roberts had 
said nothing which any careful reader of his whole 
speech — an Under-Secretary for Foreign Affairs, for 
example, quoting and speaking with a due sense 
of his great responsibilities — could conceivably have 
understood to bear this interpretation. 

A fortnight later Mr. Acland returns to the charge 
once more. " Lord Roberts," he says courteously, 
" has since explained that he did not mean what 
' his words seemed so plainly to mean " — that is, 
the smashing of Germany in time of profound peace 
and without any cause. . . . Danger to peace, the 
representative of the Foreign Office assures his 
audience, " does not come from any action of His 
' Majesty's Government. It arises, if at all, from 
' irresponsible utterances such as those which we 
' heard from Lord Roberts. I very much regret 
' that harm must have been done between the two 
' countries by Lord Roberts's speech." 2 

Although an under-secretary does not always 
enjoy the full confidence of his official superior, 
he would presumably obey orders — even an order to 
hold his tongue — if any were given. Consequently, 
although Lord Haldane's dreadful secret may have 
been kept from Mr. Acland, as unfit for his innocent 

1 Letter in the Times, November 11, 1912. 

3 Mr. Acland at Rochdale, the Times, November 25, 1912. 



LORD ROBERTS WAS RIGHT 347 

and youthful ears, it is surprising that he was never Part iv. 
warned of the dangers of the path in which he was Chapter 

so boldly treading. The discourtesies of youth to '_ 

age are not easily forgiven, especially when they are Lord , 
founded upon misrepresentation, and when, as in warnings. 
this case, the older man was right and the younger 
wrong as to the facts. 

It will be said — it has indeed been already said — 
by way of excuse for the reticence of the Government 
with regard to the intentions, which German statesmen 
revealed to Lord Haldane, at Berlin, in February 
1912 — that by keeping back from the country the 
knowledge which members of the Cabinet possessed, 
they thereby prevented an outbreak of passion and 
panic which might have precipitated war. This 
may be true or untrue ; it can neither be proved 
nor controverted ; but at any rate it was not in 
accordance with the principle of trusting the people ; 
nor would it have prevented the Government and 
their supporters — when war broke out — from making 
amends to Lord Roberts and others whom, on grounds 
of high policy, they had felt themselves obliged, in 
the past to rebuke unjustly and to discredit without 
warrant in the facts. This course was not impossible. 
Peel, a very proud man, made amends to Cobden, 
and his memory does not stand any the lower for it. 

With regard to those journalists and private 
politicians whose mistakes were not altogether their 
own fault — being due in part at least, to the conceal- 
ment of the true facts which the Government had 
practised — it would not have been in the least wound- 
ing to their honour to express regret, that they had 
been unwittingly the means of misleading the people, 
and traducing those who were endeavouring to lead 



348 DEMOCRACY AND NATIONAL SERVICE 

Part iv. it right. In their patriotic indignation some of 
Chapter these same journalists and politicians had over- 

v stepped the limits of what is justifiable in party 

Lord ^ polemics. They had attacked the teaching at the 
warnings. Military Colleges, because it sought to face the 
European situation frankly, and to work out in the 
lecture-room the strategical and tactical consequences 
which, in case of war, might be forced upon us by our 
relations with France and Russia. It would have 
done these high-minded journalists no harm in the 
eyes of their fellow-countrymen, had they acknow- 
ledged frankly that when in former days they had 
denounced the words of Lord Roberts as ' wicked ' 
and his interpretation of the situation as inspired 
by " the crude lusts and fears which haunt the 
' unimaginative soldier's brain " — when they had 
publicly denounced as * a Staff College Cabal ' teachers 
who were only doing their duty — they had unwittingly 
been guilty of a cruel misjudgment. 

It is not a little remarkable that in 1912 — indeed 
from 1905 to 1914 — Lord Roberts, who, according 
to the Nation, possessed but ' an average Tory 
intellect,' should have trusted the people, while a 
democratic Government could not bring itself to 
do so. The Cabinet, which knew the full measure 
of the danger, concealed it out of a mistaken notion 
of policy. Their henchmen on the platform and in 
the press did not know the full measure of the danger. 
They acted either from natural prejudice, or official 
inspiration — possibly from a mixture of both — when 
they made light of the danger and held up to scorn 
any one who called attention to it. The whole body 
of respectable, word-worshipping, well-to-do Liberals 
and Conservatives, whom nothing could stir out of 



FAILUEE TO MAKE AMENDS 349 

their indifference and scepticism, disapproved most partIV. 
strongly of having the word ' danger ' so much as chapter 
mentioned in their presence. The country would IIL 
to-day forgive all of these their past errors more Lord;, 
easily if, when the crisis came, they had acted a warnings. 
manly part and had expressed, regret. But never a 
word of the sort from any of these great public 
characters ! 



CHAPTER IV 

LORD KITCHENER'S TASK 

Part iv. Lord Roberts had been seeking for seven years to 
Chapter persuade the nation to realise that it was threatened 

1 by a great danger ; that it was unprepared to encounter 

^ ort j , the danger ; that by reason of this unpreparedness, 
task. the danger was brought much nearer. Until October 

1912, however, he had failed signally in capturing 
the public ear. The people would not give him 
their attention either from favour or indignation. 
The cause of which he was the advocate appeared 
to have been caught in an academic backwater. 

But from that time forward, Lord Roberts had 
no reason to complain of popular neglect. Over- 
coming his natural disinclination to platform oratory 
and political agitation, sacrificing his leisure, putting 
a dangerous strain upon his physical strength, he 
continued his propaganda at a series of great meetings 
in the industrial centres. Everywhere he was listened 
to with respect, and apparently with a great measure 
of agreement. Only on one occasion was he treated 
with discourtesy, and that was by a civic dignitary 
and not by the audience. But he had now become 
an important figure in the political conflict, and he 
had to take the consequences, in a stream of abuse 
and misrepresentation from the party which dis- 

350 



TEIUMPH OF VOLUNTARY SYSTEM 351 

approved of his principles ; while he received but part iv. 
little comfort from the other party, which lived in Chapter 
constant terror lest it might be thought to approve j^J_ 
of them. Lord Roberts's advocacy of national Lord 
service continued up to the autumn of 1913, when task. 
the gravity of the situation in Ireland made it impos- 
sible to focus public interest on any other subject. 

After the present war had run its course for a 
month or two, the minds of many people reverted 
to what Lord Roberts had been urging upon his 
fellow-countrymen for nine years past. His warnings 
had come true ; that at any rate was beyond doubt. 
The intentions which he had attributed to Germany 
were clearly demonstrated, and likewise the vastness 
and efficiency of her military organisation. The 
inadequacy of British preparations was made plain. 
They were inadequate in the sense that they had 
failed to deter the aggressor from a breach of the 
peace, and they had been equally inadequate for 
withstanding his onset. The deficiencies of the 
Territorial Army in numbers, discipline, training; 
and equipment had made it impossible to entrust 
it with the responsibility of Home Defence im- 
mediately upon the outbreak of war. As a conse- 
quence of this, the whole of the Regular Army could 
not be released for foreign service, although Sir John 
French's need of reinforcements was desperate 
Notwithstanding, however, that Lord Roberts's 
warnings had come true, many people professed to 
discover in what had happened a full justification — 
some even went so far as to call it a ' triumph ' — 
for the voluntary system. 

Even after the first battle of Ypres, those who 
held such views had no difficulty in finding evidences 



352 DEMOCRACY AND NATIONAL SERVICE 

Part iv. of their truth on all hands. They found them in 

Chapter the conduct of our army in France, and in the courage 

1 and devotion with which it had upheld the honour 

Lord f England against overwhelming odds. Thev found 

Kitchener s . . & & & J 

task. it in the response to Lord Kitchener's call for volun- 

teers, and in the eagerness and spirit of the New 
Army. They found it in our command of the sea, 
in the spirit of the nation, and in what they read in 
their newspapers about the approval and admiration 
of the world. 

In the short dark days of December and January 
we were cheered by many bold bills and headlines 
announcing what purported to be victories ; and 
we were comforted through a sad Christmastide by 
panegyrics on British instinct, pluck, good-temper, 
energy, and genius for muddling through. Philo- 
sophic commentators pointed out that, just as 
Germany was becoming tired out and short of ammuni- 
tion, just as she was bringing up troops of worse and 
worse quality, we should be at our very best, wallowing 
in our resources of men and material of war. Six 
months, a year, eighteen months hence — for the 
estimates varied — Britain would be invincible. 
Economic commentators on the other hand impressed 
upon us how much better it was to pay through the 
nose now, than to have been bleeding ourselves 
white as the Germans, the French, and the Russians 
were supposed (though without much justification) 
to have been doing for a century. 

To clinch the triumph of the voluntary system — 
when the Hour came the Man came with it. 

Many of these things were truly alleged. Lord 
Kitchener at any rate was no mirage. The gallantry 
of our Army was no illusion; indeed, its heroism 



LORD KITCHENER'S APPOINTMENT 353 

was actually underrated, for the reason that the Part iv. 
extent of its peril had never been fully grasped. Chapter 
Although British commerce had suffered severely IV - 
from the efforts of a few bold raiders, the achieve- Lord 
ments of our Navy were such that they could quite talk. ener 
fairly be described, as having secured command of 
the sea. 1 The German fleet was held pretty closely 
within its harbours. We had been able to move 
our troops and munitions of war wherever we pleased, 
and so far, without the loss of a ship, or even of a 
man. Submarine piracy — a policy of desperation — 
had not then begun. The quality of the New Army, 
the rapidity with which its recruits were being 
turned into soldiers, not only impressed the public, 
but took by complete surprise the severest of military 
critics. 

This is not the place for discussing how Lord 
Kitchener came to be appointed Secretary of State 
for War, or to attempt an estimate of his character 
and career. 2 He was no politician, but a soldier 

1 Partly by good fortune, but mainly owing to the admirable promptitude 
and skill with which our naval resources were handled, the bulk of the 
German fleet was imprisoned from the outset. We did not experience 
anything like the full effect of our unpreparedness. If Mr. Churchill had 
not taken his decision on the day following the delivery of the Austrian 
ultimatum to Servia (July 24) by postponing the demobilisation of the 
Fleet — to the great scandal of his own party, when the facts first became 
known — there would have been a very different tale to tell as regards the 
fate of the British merchant service on the high seas. 

2 Critics of the present Government, such as the editor of the National 
Review, have maintained that Lord Kitchener was forced upon an unwilling 
Cabinet by the pressure of public opinion, and that, although he was in 
England throughout the crisis, he was allowed to make all his preparations 
for returning to Egypt, and was only fetched back as he was on the point of 
stepping aboard the packet. During Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday (August 
2, 3, and 4) London was buzzing with a strange rumour (which was fathered 
altogether falsely upon the French Ambassador) that France did not ask for 
or require our assistance on land, but only at sea. If this were so the 
absurdity of sending our Expeditionary Force would have been obvious. It 
is noteworthy that a usually well-inspired section of the Ministerial Press — 
even after they had reluctantly accepted war as inevitable — were still main- 
taining stoutly, even so late as Tuesday and Wednesday (4th and 5th), that 

2a 



354 DEMOCRACY AND NATIONAL SERVICE 

Part iv. and an administrator. He was in his sixty-fifth 

Chapter year, and since he had left the Royal Military Academy 

'_ in 1871, by far the greater part of his work had been 

Lord done abroad — in the Levant, Egypt, South Africa, 

Kitchener's . 

task. and India. 1 In no case had he ever failed at anything 

he had undertaken. The greater part of his work 
had been completely successful ; much of it had been 
brilliantly successful. He believed in himself ; the 
country believed in him ; foreign nations believed 
in him. No appointment could have produced a 
better effect upon the hearts of the British people 
and upon those of their Allies. The nation felt — 
if we may use so homely an image in this connection — ■ 
that Lord Kitchener was holding its hand confidently 
and reassuringly in one of his, while with the other 
he had the whole race of politicians firmly by the 
scruff, and would see to it that there was no nonsense 
or trouble in that quarter. 

It is no exaggeration to say that from that time 
to this, 2 Lord Kitchener's presence in the Cabinet 
has counted for more with the country, than that 
of any other minister, or indeed than all other 

the Expeditionary Force should not be allowed to cross the channel. Lord 
Kitchener was appointed on the Thursday, and the Expeditionary Force 
began to go abroad the following week. The chapter of English political 
history which begins with the presentation of the Austrian ultimatum to 
Servia on the 23rd of July, and ends with the appointment of Lord Kitchener 
on the 6th of August, will no doubt prove to be one of the most interesting 
in our annals. Whether it will prove to be one of the most glorious or one 
of the most humiliating exhibitions of British statesmanship we cannot 
say until we possess fuller knowledge than we do at present of the attitude 
of ministers at the Cabinets of Friday, Saturday, and Sunday (July 31, 
August 1 and 2). 

1 Palestine, 1874-1878 ; Cyprus, 1878-1882 ; Egypt, 1882-1899 ; 
South Africa, 1899-1902; India, 1902-1909; Egypt, 1911-1914. Only 
during the years 1S71-1874 and 1909-1911 does Lord Kitchener appear to 
have been freed from foreign service, and during a part of the latter interval 
he was travelling in China and Japan. 

2 End of May 1915. 



HIS GRASP OF ESSENTIALS 355 

ministers put together. That in itself proves his partIV. 
possession of very remarkable qualities ; for nine chapter 
such months of public anxiety and private sorrow, 
as England has lately known, will disturb any reputa- Lord 
tion which is not firmly founded upon merit. During task. 
this time we have seen other reputations come and 
go ; popularities made, and unmade, and remade. 
We have seen great figures all but vanish into the 
mist of neglect. But confidence in Lord Kitchener 
has remained constant through it all. Things may 
have gone wrong ; the Government may have made 
mistakes ; even the War Office itself may have 
made mistakes ; yet the faith of the British people 
in the man of their choice has never been shaken 
for an instant. 

The highest of all Lord Kitchener's merits is, that 
being suddenly pitchforked into office by an emergency, 
he nevertheless grasped at once the two or three 
main features of the situation, and turned the whole 
force of his character to dealing with them, letting 
the smaller matters meanwhile fall into line as best 
they might. He grasped the dominating factor — 
that it was essential to subordinate every military 
and political consideration to supporting France, 
whose fight for her own existence was equally a 
fight for the existence of the British Empire. He 
grasped the urgent need for the enrolment of many 
hundreds of thousands of men fit for making into 
soldiers, if we were to win this fight and not lose it. 
He grasped the need for turning these recruits into 
soldiers at a pace which hardly a single military 
expert believed to be possible. He may, or may 
not, have fully grasped at the beginning, the difficulties 
— mainly owing to dearth of officers — with which he 



356 DEMOCRACY AND NATIONAL SERVICE 

Part iv. was faced ; but when he did grasp them, by some 

Chapter means or another, he succeeded in overcoming them. 

IVj It is dangerous to speak of current events in 

Lord _ confident superlatives ; but one is tempted to do 

task. er S so with regard to the training of the New Army. 

Even the most friendly among expert critics believed 

that what Lord Kitchener had undertaken was a thing 

quite impossible to do in the prescribed time. Yet he 

has done it. And not only the friendly, but also the 

severest critics, have admitted that the New Army 

is already fit to face any continental army, and that, 

moreover, to all appearance, it is one of the finest 

armies in history. The sternest proof is yet to 

come ; but it is clear that something not far short 

of a miracle has been accomplished. 

If we search for an explanation of the miracle, 
we find it quite as much in Lord Kitchener's character 
as in his methods. Fortunately what was so pain- 
fully lacking in the political sphere was present in 
the military — Leadership. 

Despite the support which Lord Kitchener derived 
from the public confidence he laboured under several 
very serious disadvantages. A man cannot spend 
almost the whole of his working life out of England, 
and then return to it at the age of sixty-four, under- 
standing all the conditions as clearly as if he had 
never left it. Lord Kitchener was ignorant not 
only of English political conditions, but also of English 
industrial conditions, which in a struggle like the 
present are certainly quite as important as the 
other. He may well have consoled himself, however, 
with the reflection that, although he himself was 
lacking in knowledge, his colleagues were experts 
in both of these spheres. 



HIS DISADVANTAGES 357 

It was inevitable that Lord Kitchener must Paet iv. 
submit to the guidance of Ministers in the political Chapter 

sphere, providing they agreed with his main objects — '_ 

the unflinching support of France, and the creation L °r<i 

j, , AT . Kitchener's 

oi the JNew Army. task. 

In the industrial sphere, on the other hand, it 
was the business of Ministers, not merely to keep 
themselves in touch with Lord Kitchener's present 
and future needs, and to offer their advice and help 
for satisfying them, but also to insist upon his listen- 
ing to reason, if in his urgent need and unfamiliarity 
with the business world, he was seen to be running 
upon danger in any direction. 

It is impossible to resist the impression that, 
while his colleagues held Lord Kitchener very close 
by the head as to politics, and explained to him 
very clearly what they conceived the people would 
stand and would not stand, they did not show any- 
thing like the same vigilance or determination in 
keeping him well advised as to the means of procuring 
the material of war. 



CHAPTEK V 



MATERIAL OP WAR 



Material 
of war. 



Part iv As regards the business world the position at this 
Chapter time 1 was a singularly difficult one. Within a few 

1 days of the outbreak of war, orders from all parts 

of the globe were forthcoming, on so vast a scale 
that the ordinary means of coping with them were 
wholly inadequate. It was not possible to walk out 
of the War Office and buy what was wanted in the 
shops. In a very brief period the whole industrial 
system of the United Kingdom was congested with 
orders. 

In Lord Kitchener's former experience of military 
and civil administration the difficulty had usually 
been to get the money he needed, in order to carry 
out his reforms and undertakings. But here was a 
case where he could have all the money he chose to 
ask for ; it was the commodities themselves which 
could not be had either for money or love. 

When war broke out the industries of France and 
Belgium were paralysed — the former temporarily, 
the latter permanently. We could buy nothing in 
France ; France, on the other hand, was buying eagerly 
in England. And so was Russia, not herself as yet 
a great industrial producer. And so were Belgium, 

1 I am specially referring to August-December 1914. 
358 



ORGANISATION OF RESOURCES 359 

Servia, Italy, Roumania, Greece, Japan — indeed the paetIV. 
whole world, more or less — belligerents and neutrals Chapter 
alike — except the two Powers with which we were at _^_ 
war. All these competitors were in the field against Material 
the War Office, running up prices, and making the 
fortunes of enterprising middlemen, who flocked to 
the feast, like vultures from all corners of the sky. 
The industrial situation, therefore, needed the sternest 
regulation, and needed it at once. For it was essential 
to secure our own requirements, and to make certain 
that our Allies secured theirs, at a fair price and in 
advance of all other purchasers. 

Moreover, it was obviously necessary to look an 
immense way ahead, especially as regards munitions 
of war ; to aid with loans, and encourage with orders, 
firms able and willing to make what was required. 
It was essential that makers of arms and supplies 
should be stimulated to undertake vast increases of 
their staff and plant. Before the battle of the Marne 
was ended it was known, only too well, that every 
nation in Europe — with the single exception of 
Germany — had grossly underestimated the expendi- 
ture of artillery ammunition under conditions of 
modern warfare. It was of the most immediate 
urgency to concert with our Allies, and with our 
manufacturers, in order to set this trouble right. It 
was as necessary for the Allies to organise their 
resources as it was for them to organise their armies. 
The second, indeed, was impossible without the first, 
as Germany well knew, and in her own case had 
already practised. 

Finally, there was the problem — half industrial, 
half political — of labour ; its hours, conditions, and 
remuneration. Without the utmost vigilance and 



360 DEMOCKACY AND NATIONAL SEE VICE 

part iv. sympathy, without a constant inspiration of duty, 
Chapter without political leadership which appealed to the 

'_ imagination and heart of the people, there were bound 

Material to be endless troubles and confusion ; there were 

of war. 1 .. 

bound to be disputes, quarrels, stoppages, and 
strikes. 

The prices of certain munitions and materials 
were almost anything the makers liked to name. 
Money was flying about, and everybody was aware 
of it. Human nature was sorely tempted. The 
future was anxious and uncertain. People dependent 
for a living on their own exertions, were beset with a 
dangerous inclination to hold out their pitchers, in the 
hopes of catching some portion of the golden shower 
while it lasted. The idea that workmen were, on 
the average, any greedier than their masters is only 
held by persons who have little knowledge of the 
facts. Cost of living had risen rapidly ; this might 
have been foreseen from the beginning, as well as 
the dangers which it contained. 

In such circumstances as these the baser appetites 
of mankind are always apt to break loose and gain 
the upper hand, unless there is a firm leadership of 
the nation. That is where the statesman should 
come in, exercising a sagacious control upon the 
whole organisation of industry ; impressing on masters 
the need for patience and sympathy; on their 
men the need for moderation; on all the need for 
sacrifices. 

During the months of February, March, and 
April 1915 there was a loud outcry, led by a member 
of the Government, deploring the lack of muni- 
tions of war, and attributing the deficiency to 
a want of industry and energy on the part of a 



MINISTERIAL INCONSISTENCIES 361 

section of the working classes. Their frequent paetIV. 
abstentions were condemned, and drunkenness was Chapter 
alleged to have been, in many cases, a contributory 

CaUSe. Material 

Then Mr. Asquith came forward and astonished ° 
the world by denying stoutly that there was, or ever 
had been, any deficiency in munitions of war. 1 He 
assured the country that so long ago as September 
he had " appointed a committee ... to survey the 
' situation." 2 He said nothing about irregularity of 
work, or about drunkenness as a cause of it. On 
the contrary, he produced the impression that the 
Army was as well provided as it could be, and that 
the behaviour of the whole world of industry had 

1 " I saw a statement the other day thai the operations not only of our 
Army but of our Allies were being crippled, or at any rate hampered, by our 
failure to provide the necessary ammunition. There is not a word of truth 
in that statement. I say there is not a word of truth in that statement 
which is the more mischievous because if it were believed, it is calculated 
to dishearten our troops, to discourage our Allies, and to stimulate the 
hopes and activities of our enemies. Nor is there any more truth in the 
suggestion that the Government, of which I am the head, have only recently 
become alive to the importance and the urgency of these matters. On the 
contrary, in the earliest days of the war, when some of our would-be 
instructors were thinking of quite other things, they were already receiving 
our anxious attention, and as far back, I think, as the month of September 
1 appointed a Committee of the Cabinet, presided over by Lord Kitchener, 
to survey the situation from this point of view — a Committee whose 
labours and inquiries resulted in a very substantial enlargement both on 
the field and of machinery of Bupply. . . . 

" No, the urgency of the situation— and, as I shall show, the urgency 
is great — can be explained without any resort to recrimination or to blame. 
It is due, in the main, to two very obvious causes. It is due, first of all, 
to the unprecedented scale upon which ammunition on both sides has been, 
and is being, expended. It not only goes far beyond all previous experience, 
but it is greatly in advance of the forecasts of the best experts." — Mr. Asquith 
at Newcastle, April 20, 1915. 

2 There has certainly been no lack of appointments either of committees 
or individuals. So lately as the 7th of April the newspapers announced a 
War Office Committee " to secure that the Bupply of munitions of war shall 
' be sufficient to meet all requirements." About a week later came the 
announcement of a still more august committee — ' The Output Committee ' 
— with Mr. Lloyd-George as Chairman and Mr. Balfour as a member of it. 
If war could be won by appointing committees and creating posts, victory 
ought long ago to have been secured. 



362 DEMOCRACY AND NATIONAL SERVICE 

PaktIv. been as impeccable as the foresight and energy of 
Chapter the Government. 

1 The country found it difficult to reconcile these 

Material various statements one with another. It found it 

of war. . 

still more difficult to reconcile Mr. Asquith s assur- 
ances with what it had heard, not only from other 
Ministers, but from generals in their published 
communications. Private letters from the front for 
months past had told a very different story from 
that which was told, in soothing tones, to the 
Newcastle audience. These had laid stress upon the 
heavy price paid in casualties, and the heavy handicap 
imposed on military operations, owing to shortage 
of artillery ammunition. The appointment of the 
Committee alone was wholly credited ; the rest of 
these assurances were disbelieved. 

Indeed it was impossible to doubt that there had 
been miscalculation and want of foresight in various 
directions ; and it would have been better to admit 
it frankly. The blame, however, did not rest upon 
Lord Kitchener's shoulders, but upon those of his 
colleagues. They understood the industrial con- 
ditions of the United Kingdom ; he did not and 
could not ; and they must have been well aware of 
this fact. It was not Lord Kitchener's business, nor 
had he the time, to make himself familiar with those 
matters which are so well understood by the Board 
of Trade, the Local Government Board, and the 
Treasury. His business was to help France, to get 
recruits as best he could, to train them as soon as 
he could, and to send them out to beat the Germans. 
It was the business of the Government — expert in 
British political and industrial conditions — to put him 
in the way of getting his recruits, and the equipment, 



COMPLAINTS ABOUT MUNITIONS 363 

supplies, and munitions of war which were necessary part iv 

for making them effective. 1 Chapter 

B v. 

1 Since this chapter was printed (May 1915) public opinion has been 

somewhat distracted by a sensational wrangle as to whether or not the Material 
right kind of ammunition had been supplied. These are technical matters f war- 
upon which the ordinary man is no judge. The main point is that — 
certainly until quite recently — enough ammunition was not supplied ; nor 
anything like enough ; and this was due to the failure to look far enough 
ahead in the early days of the war ; and to organise our industrial system 
to meet the inevitable requirements. 



CHAPTER VI 

METHODS OF RECRUITING 

Part iv. If Lord Kitchener is not to be held primarily 
Chapter responsible for the delay in providing war material, 

1 just as little is he to be blamed for the methods of 

Methods of recruiting. For he had to take what the politicians 

recruiting. < - 7 - /- 

told him. He had to accept their sagacious views 
of what the people would stand ; of ' what they would 
never stand ' ; of what ' from the House of Commons' 
standpoint ' was practicable or impracticable. 

Lord Kitchener wanted men. During August 
and September he wanted them at once — without a 
moment's delay. Obviously the right plan was to 
ask in a loud voice who would volunteer ; to take as 
many of these as it was possible to house, clothe, 
feed, and train ; then to sit down quietly and consider 
how many more were likely to be wanted, at what 
dates, and how best they could be got. But as 
regards the first quarter of a million or so, which 
there were means for training at once, there was 
only one way — to call loudly for volunteers. The 
case was one of desperate urgency, and as things 
then stood, it would have been the merest pedantry 
to delay matters until a system, for which not even 
a scheme or skeleton existed before the emergency 
arose, had been devised. The rough and ready 

364 



NEED FOR A SYSTEM 365 

method of calling out loudly was open to many PartIV. 
objections on the score both of justice and efficiency, Chapter 
but the all-important thing was to save time. J^_ 

Presumably, by and by, when the first rush was Methods of 
over, the Cabinet did sit down round a table to talk ' 
things over. We may surmise the character of the 
conversation which was then poured into Lord 
Kitchener's ears : — How England would never stand 
this or that ; how no freeborn Englishman — especially 
north of the Humber and the Trent, 1 whence the 
Liberal party drew its chief support — would tolerate 
being tapped on the shoulder and told to his face 
by Government what his duty was ; how much less 
would he stand being coerced by Government into 
doing it ; how he must be tapped on the shoulder 
and told by other people ; how he must be coerced 
by other people ; how pressure must be put on by 
private persons — employers by threats of dismissal — 
young females of good, bad, and indifferent character 
by blandishments and disdain. The fear of starva- 
tion for the freeborn Englishman and his family — at 
that time a real and present danger with many minds 
— or the shame of receiving a white feather, were the 
forces by which England and the Empire were to be 
saved at this time of trial. Moreover, would it not 
lead to every kind of evil if, at this juncture, the 
country were to become annoyed with the Govern- 
ment % Better surely that it should become annoyed 
with any one rather than the Government, whose 
patriotic duty, therefore, was to avoid unpopularity 
with more devoted vigilance than heretofore, if such 
a thing were possible. 

One can imagine Lord Kitchener — somewhat weary 

1 Cf. Mr. Runciman, ante, p. 344. 



366 DEMOCRACY AND NATIONAL SERVICE 



recruiting 



Part iv. of discussions in this airy region, and sorely perplexed 

Chapter by all these cobwebs of the party system — insisting 

^ doggedly that his business was to make a New Army, 

Methods of and to come to the assistance of France, without a 

day's unnecessary delay. He must have the men ; 

how was he to get the men ? 

And one can imagine the response. " Put your 
trust in us, and we will get you the men. We 
will go on shouting. We will shout louder and 
louder. We will paste up larger and larger pictures 
on the hoardings. We will nil whole pages of 
the newspapers with advertisements drawn up 
by the ' livest publicity artists ' of the day. We 
will enlist the sympathies and support of the 
press — for this is not an Oriental despotism, but 
a free country, where the power of the press is 
absolute. And if the sympathies of the press are 
cool, or their support hangs back, we will threaten 
them with the Press Bureau. We will tell the 
country -gentlemen, and the men -of -business, that 
it is their duty to put on the screw ; and most of 
these, being easily hypnotised by the word ' duty,' 
will never dream of refusing. If their action is 
resented, and they become disliked it will be 
very regrettable ; but taking a broad view, this 
will not be injurious to the Liberal party in the 
long run. 

" Leave this little matter, Lord Kitchener, to 
experts. Lend your great name. Allow us to 
show your effigies to the people. Consider what a 
personal triumph for yourself if, at the end of this 
great war, we can say on platforms that you and we 
together have won it on the Voluntary System. 
Trust in us and our methods. We will boom your 



THE ADVERTISEMENT CAMPAIGN 367 

' New Army, and we will see to it at the same time Part iv. 
1 that the Government does not become unpopular, Chapter 
* and also, if possible, that the Empire is saved." '_ 

So they boomed the Voluntary System and the Methods of 
New Army in Periclean passages ; touched with awe 
the solemn chords ; shouted as if it had been Jericho. 

Two specimens, out of a large number of a 
similar sort — the joint handiwork apparently of the 
' publicity artists,' bettering the moving appeals of 
the late Mr. Barnum, and of the party managers, in- 
spired by the traditions of that incomparable ex-whip, 
Lord Murray of Elibank — are given below. 1 It is of 
course impossible to do justice here to the splendour 
of headlines and leaded capitals ; but the nature of 
the appeal will be gathered clearly enough. Briefly, 
the motive of it was to avoid direct compulsion by 
Government — which would have fallen equally and 
fairly upon all — and to substitute for this, indirect 
compulsion and pressure by private individuals — 
which must of necessity operate unequally, unfairly, 
and invidiously. To say that this sort of thing is 
not compulsion, is to say what is untrue. If, as 
appears to be the case, the voluntary system has 
broken down, and we are to have compulsion, most 
honest men and women will prefer that the compulsion 
should be fair rather than unfair, direct rather than 
indirect, and that it should be exercised by those 
responsible for the government of the country, rather 
than by private persons who cannot compel, but can 
only penalise. 

1 (A) Four questions to the women of England. 

1. You have read what the Germans have done in Belgium. Have you 
thought what they would do if they invaded England ? 

2. Do you realise that the safety of your Home and Children depends 
on our getting more men now ? 



368 DEMOCRACY AND NATIONAL SERVICE 

Past iv. By these means, during the past six months, a 

Chapter great army has been got together — an army great in 

V1, numbers, 1 still greater in spirit ; probably one of the 

Methods of noblest armies ever recruited in any cause. And 

n& ' Lord Kitchener has done his part by training this 

army with incomparable energy, and by infusing into 

officers and men alike his own indomitable resolution. 

The high quality of the New Army is due to the 

fact that the bulk of it consists of two kinds of men, 

who of all others are the best material for soldiers. 

It consists of men who love fighting for its own sake 

— a small class. It also consists of men who hate 

fighting, but whose sense of duty is their guiding 

principle — fortunately a very large class. It consists 

of many others as well, driven on by divers motives. 

But the spirit of the New Army — according to the 

3. Do you realise that the one word " Go " from you may send another 
man to fight for our King and Country ? 

4. When the War is over and your husband or your son is asked ' What 
did you do in the great War ? ' — is he to hang his head because you would 
not let him go ? 

Women of England do your duty ! Send your men to-day to join our 
glorious Army. 

God Save the King. 

(B) Five questions to those who employ male servants. 

1. Have you a butler, groom, chauffeur, gardener, or gamekeeper serving 
you who, at this moment should be serving your King and Country ? 

2. Have you a man serving at your table who should be serving a gun ? 

3. Have you a man digging your garden who should be digging trenches ? 

4. Have you a man driving your car who should be driving a transport 
wagon ? 

5. Have you a man preserving your game who should be helping to 
preserve your Country ? 

A great responsibility rests on you. Will you sacrifice your personal 
convenience for your Country's need ? 

Ask your men to enlist to-day. 

The address of the nearest Recruiting Office can be obtained at any 
Post Office. 

God Save the King. 

1 How many we have not been told ; but that the numbers, whatever 
they may be, do not yet reach nearly what is still required we know from the 
frantic character of the most recent advertisements. 



ITS EFFECT ON PUBLIC OPINION 369 

accounts of those who are in the best position to Pakt iv. 
judge — is the spirit of the first two classes — of the Chapter 
fighters and the sense-of-duty men. It is these who J^_ 
have leavened it throughout. Methods of 

This magnificent result — for it is magnificent, 
whatever may be thought of the methods which 
achieved it — has been claimed in many quarters — 
Liberal, Unionist, and non-party — as a triumph for 
the voluntary system. But if we proceed to question 
it, how voluntary was it really ? Also how just % 
Did the New Army include all, or anything like all, 
those whose clear duty it was to join ? And did it 
not include many people who ought never to have 
been asked to join, or even allowed to join, until 
others — whose ages, occupations, and responsibilities 
marked them out for the first levies — had all been 
called up ? 

There is also a further question — did the country, 
reading these various advertisements and placards — 
heroic, melodramatic, pathetic, and facetious — did 
the country form a true conception of the gravity of 
the position ? Was it not in many cases confused 
and perplexed by the nature of the appeal ? Did 
not many people conclude, that things could not 
really be so very serious, if those in authority resorted 
to such flamboyant and sensational methods — 
methods so conspicuously lacking in dignity, so 
inconsistent with all previous ideas of the majesty 
of Government in times of national peril ? 

The method itself, no doubt, was only unfamiliar 
in so far as it used the King's name. It was familiar 
and common enough in other connections. But a 
method which might have been unexceptionable for 
calling attention to the virtues of a shop, a soap, a 

2b 



370 DEMOCRACY AND NATIONAL SERVICE 

Part iv. circus, or a pill, seemed inappropriate in the case of 
Chapter a great nation struggling at the crisis of its fate. 1 

. Each of us must judge from his own experience 

Methods of f the effect produced. The writer has heard harsher 

recruiting. . . - 1 - 

things said of these appeals by the poor, than by the 
well-to-do. The simplest and least sophisticated 
minds are often the severest critics in matters of 
taste as well as morals. And this was a matter of 
both. Among townspeople as well as countryfolk 
there were many who — whether they believed or 
disbelieved in the urgent need, whether they responded 
to the appeal or did not respond to it — regarded the 
whole of this ' publicity ' campaign with distrust 
and dislike, as a thing which demoralised the country, 
which was revolting to its honour and conscience, 
and in which the King's name ought never to have 
been used. 2 

1 With apologies for the dialect, in which I am not an expert, I venture 
to set out the gist of a reply given to a friend who set himself to find out why 
recruiting was going badly in a Devonshire village. ..." We do-ant 
' think nought, Zur, o' them advertaizements and noospaper talk about 
' going soldgering. When Guv'ment needs soldgers really sore, Guv'ment '11 
' say so clear enough, like it does when it wants taxes — ' Come Hong, 
' Frank Halls, you're wanted.'' . . . And when Guv'ment taps Frank Halls 
' on showlder, and sez this, I'll go right enough ; but I'll not stir foot till 
' Guv'ment does ; nor'U any man of sense this zide Exeter." 

2 The following letter which appeared in the Westminster Gazette (January 
20, 1915), states the case so admirably that I have taken the liberty 
of quoting it in full : 

" Dear Sir — Every day you tell your readers that we are collecting 
' troops by means of voluntary enlistment, yet it is self-evident that our 
' recruiting campaign from the first has been a very noisy and a very vulgar 
' compulsion, which in a time of immense crisis has lowered the dignity of 
' our country and provoked much anxiety among our Allies. Our national 
' habit of doing the right thing in the wrong way has never been exercised 
' in a more slovenly and unjust manner. It is a crime against morals not 
' to use the equitable principles of national service when our country is 
' fighting for her life ; and this obvious truth should be recognised as a 
' matter of course by every true democrat. A genuinely democratic people, 
' proud of their past history, and determined to hold their own against 
' Germany's blood-lust, would have divided her male population into classes, 
' and would have summoned each class to the colours at a given date. 
' Those who were essential to the leading trades of the country would have 
' been exempted from war service in the field, as they are in Germany ; 



recruiting 



ON THE WORKING CLASSES 371 

On the part of the working - classes there were partIV. 
other objections to the methods employed. They Chapter 
resented the hints and instructions which were so j_^_ 
obligingly given by the ' publicity artists ' and the Methods of 
'party managers' to the well-to-do classes — to 
employers of all sorts — as to how they should bring 
pressure to bear upon their dependents. And they 
resented — especially the older men and those with 
family responsibilities — the manner in which they 
were invited by means of circulars to signify their 
willingness to serve — as they imagined in the last dire 
necessity — and when they had agreed patriotically to 
do so, found themselves shortly afterwards called 
upon to fulfil their contract. For they knew that in 
the neighbouring village — or in the very next house — 
there were men much more eligible for military 

' the younger classes would have been called up first, and no class would 
' have been withdrawn from its civil work until the military authorities 
' were ready to train it. Instead of this quiet and dignified justice, this 
' admirable and quiet unity of a free people inspired by a fine patriotism, 
' we have dazed ourselves with shrieking posters and a journalistic clamour 
' against ' shirkers,' and loud abuse of professional footballers ; and now 
' an advertisement in the newspapers assures the women of England that 
' they must do what the State declines to achieve, that they must send their 
' men and boys into the field since their country is fighting for her life. What 
' cowardice ! Why impose this voluntary duty on women when the State 
' is too ignoble to look upon her own duty in this matter as a moral obligation? 

" The one virtue of voluntary enlistment is that it should be voluntary — 
' a free choice between a soldier's life and a civilian's life. To use moral 
' pressure, with the outcries of public indignation, in order to drive civilians 
' from their work into the army — what is this but a most undignified com- 
' pulsion ? And it is also a compulsion that presses unequally upon the 
' people, for its methods are without system. Many families send their 
' all into the fighting line ; many decline to be patriotic. A woman said 
' to me yesterday : ' My husband has gone, and I am left with his business. 
' Why should he go ? Other women in my neighbourhood have their 
' husbands still, and it's rubbish to say that the country is in danger when 
' the Government allows and encourages this injustice in recruiting. If 
: the country is in danger all the men should fight — if their trade work is 
' unnecessary to the armies.' 

" This point of view is right ; the wrong one is advocated by you and by 
' other Radicals who dislike the justice of democratic equality. — Yours 
' truly, Walter Shaw Sparrow." 



372 DEMOCRACY AND NATIONAL SERVICE 

PahtIV. service in point of age and freedom from family 
Chapter responsibilities, who, not having either volunteered, 

1 or filled up the circular, were accordingly left un- 

Methods of disturbed to go about their daily business. 1 

recruiting. J 

The attitude of the country generally at the 
outbreak of war was admirable. It was what it 
should have been — as on a ship after a collision, where 
crew and passengers, all under self-command, and 
without panic, await orders patiently. So the country 
waited — waited for clear orders — waited to be told, 
in tones free from all ambiguity and hesitation, what 
they were to do as classes and as individuals. There 
was very little fuss or confusion. People were some- 
what dazed for a short while by the financial crisis ; 
but the worst of that was soon over. They then 
said to themselves, " Let us get on with our ordinary 
' work as hard as usual (or even harder), until we 
' receive orders from those responsible for the ship's 
' safety, telling us what we are to do." 

There was a certain amount of sparring, then and 
subsequently, between high-minded journalists, who 

1 There have been bitter complaints of this artful way of getting recruits, 
as a boy ' sniggles ' trout. The following letter to the Times (April 21, 
1915) voices a very widely spread sense of injustice : 

" Sir — Will you give me the opportunity to ask a question, which I 
' think you will agree is important ? When the Circular to Householders 
' was issued, many heads of families gave in their names on the assumption 
' that they would be called up on the last resort, and under circumstances 
' in which no patriotic man could refuse his help. Married men with large 
' families are now being called up apparently without the slightest regard 
' to their home circumstances. Many of the best of them are surprised and 
' uneasy at leaving their families, but feel bound in honour to keep their 
' word, some even thinking they have no choice. The separation allowances 
: for these families will be an immense burden on the State, and, if the 
' breadwinner falls, a permanent burden. Is the need for men still so 
' serious and urgent as to justify this ? If it is, then I for one, who have 
' up to now hoped that the war might be put through without compulsion, 
' feel that the time has come to ' fetch ' the unmarried shirkers, and I 
' believe there is a wide-spread and growing feeling to that effect.- — I am, 
' Sir, etc., Charles G. E. Welby." 



BUSINESS AS USUAL 373 

were engaged in carrying on their own business as partIV. 
usual, and hard-headed traders and manufacturers Chapter 
who desired to do likewise. The former were perhaps ^_ 
a trifle too self-righteous, while the latter took more Methods of 
credit than they deserved for patriotism, seeing that " 
their chief merit was common sense. To have stopped 
the business of the country would have done nobody 
but the Germans any good, and would have added 
greatly to our national embarrassment. 

At times of national crisis, there will always 
be a tendency, among most men and women, to 
misgivings, lest they may not be doing the full measure 
of their duty. Their consciences become morbidly 
active ; it is inevitable that they should ; indeed it 
would be regrettable if they did not. People are 
uncomfortable, unless they are doing something they 
have never done before, which they dislike doing, 
and which they do less well than their ordinary work. 
In many cases what they are inspired to do is less 
useful than would have been their ordinary work, 
well and thoughtfully done. At such times as these 
the Society for Setting Everybody Right always in- 
creases its activities, and enrols a large number of 
new members. But very soon, if there is leadership 
of the nation, things fall into their proper places and 
proportions. Neither business nor pleasure can be 
carried on as usual, and everybody knows it. There 
must be great changes ; but not merely for the sake 
of change. There must be great sacrifices in many 
cases ; and those who are doing well must give a help- 
ing hand to those others who are doing ill. But all — 
whether they are doing well or ill from the standpoint 
of their own private interests — must be prepared to 
do what the leader of the nation orders them to do. 



374 DEMOCRACY AND NATIONAL SERVICE 

part iv. This was fully recognised in August, September, 
Chapter October, and November last. The country expected 
^ orders — clear and unmistakable orders — and it was 
Methods of prepared to obey whatever orders it received. 

But no orders came. Instead of orders there were 
appeals, warnings, suggestions, assurances. The 
panic-monger was let loose with his paint-box of 
horrors. The diffident parliamentarian fell to his 
usual methods of soothing, and coaxing, and shaming 
people into doing a very vague and much-qualified 
thing, which he termed their duty. But there was no 
clearness, no firmness. An ordinary man will realise 
his duty so soon as he receives a definite command, 
and not before. He received no such command ; he 
was lauded, lectured, and exhorted ; and then was left 
to decide upon his course of action by the light of his 
own reason and conscience. 1 

He was not even given a plain statement of the 

1 An example of the apparent inability of the Government to do any- 
thing thoroughly or courageously is found in a circular letter to shopkeepers 
and wholesale firms, which was lately sent out by the Home Secretary and 
the President of the Board of Trade. The object of this enquiry— undertaken 
at leisure, nine months after the outbreak of war — is to obtain information 
as to the number of men of military age, who are still employed in these 
particular trades, and as to the willingness of their employers to spare them 
if required, and to reinstate them at the end of the war, etc., etc. 

The timid futility of this attempt at organising the resources of the 
country is shown first by the fact that it left to the option of each employer 
whether he will reply or not. Businesses which do not wish to have their 
employees taken away need not give an answer. It is compulsory for 
individuals to disclose all particulars of their income ; why, therefore, need 
Government shrink from making it compulsory upon firms to disclose all 
particulars of their staffs ? . . . The second vice of this application is that 
the information asked for is quite inadequate for the object. Even if the 
enquiry were answered faithfully by every employer and householder in 
the country, it would not give the Government what they require for the 
purposes of organising industry or recruiting the army. ... In the third 
place, a certain group of trades is singled out at haphazard. If it is desired 
to organise the resources of the country what is needed is a general census 
of all males between 16 and 60. 

One does not know whether to marvel most at the belated timorousness 
of this enquiry, or at the slatternly way in which it has been framed. 



AN ORGIE OF SENSATIONALISM 375 

true facts of the situation, and then left at peace to part iv. 
determine what he would do. He was disturbed in Chapter 

his meditations by shouting — more shouting — ever 

louder and louder shouting — through some thousands Methods of 
of megaphones. The nature of the appeal was 
emotional, confusing, frenzied, and at times degrading. 
Naturally the results were in many directions most 
unsatisfactory, unbusinesslike, and disorderly. The 
drain of recruiting affected industries and individuals 
not only unequally and unfairly, but in a way 
contrary to the public interest. If Government will 
not exercise guidance and control in unprecedented 
circumstances, it is inevitable that the country must 
suffer. 

To judge from the placards and the posters, the 
pictures and the language, a casual stranger would 
not have judged that the British Empire stood at 
the crisis of its fate ; but rather that some World's 
Fair was arriving shortly, and that these were the 
prehminary flourishes. Lord Kitchener cannot have 
enjoyed the pre-eminence which was allotted to him 
in our mural decorations, and which suggested that 
he was some kind of co-equal with the famous Barnum 
or Lord George Sanger. Probably no one alive hated 
the whole of this orgie of vulgar sensationalism, 
which the timidity of the politicians had forced upon 
the country, more than he did. 1 

1 One who is no longer alive — Queen Victoria — would possibly have 
hated it even more. Imagine her late Majesty's feelings on seeing the 
walls of Windsor plastered with the legend — ' Be a sport : Join to-day ' — 
and with other appeals of the same elevating character ! . . . But perhaps 
the poster which is more remarkable than any other — considering the source 
from which it springs— is one showing a garish but recognisable portrait 
of Lord Roberts, with the motto, ' He did his duty. Will you do yours ? ' 
If the timidity of politicians is apparent in certain directions, their courage 
is no less noteworthy in others. The courage of a Government (containing 
as it does Mr. Asquith, Lord Haldane, Mr. Runciman, Sir John Simon, 



376 DEMOCRACY AND NATIONAL SERVICE 

Part iv. Having stirred up good and true men to join the 

Chapter New Army, whether it was rightly their turn or not ; 

YI ' having got at others in whom the voluntary spirit 

Methods of burned less brightly, by urging their employers to 

' dismiss them and their sweethearts to throw them 

over if they refused the call of duty, the ' publicity 

artists ' and the ' party managers ' between them 

undoubtedly collected for Lord Kitchener a very 

fine army, possibly the finest raw material for an 

army which has ever been got together. And Lord 

Kitchener, thereupon, set to work, and trained 

this army as no one but Lord Kitchener could have 

trained it. 

These results were a source of great pride and 
self - congratulation among the politicians. The 
voluntary principle — you see how it works ! What 
a triumph ! What other nation could have done 
the same ? 

Other nations certainly could not have done the 
same, for the reason that there are some things which 
one cannot do twice over, some things which one 
cannot give a second time — one's life for example, 
or the flower of the manhood of a nation to be made 
into soldiers. 

Other nations could not have done what we were 
doing, because they had done it already. They had 
their men prepared when the need arose — which we 
had not. Other nations were engaged in holding the 
common enemy at enormous sacrifices until we made 
ourselves ready ; until we — triumphing in our 

Mr. Harcourt, and Mr. Acland — not to mention others) which can issue 
such a poster must be of a very high order indeed. One wonders, however, 
if this placard would not be more convincing, and its effect even greater, 
were the motto amplified, so as to tell the whole story : " He did his duty ; 
' we denounced him for doing it. We failed to do ours ; will you, however, 
' do yours ? " 



A FRENCH VIEW 377 

voluntary system, covering ourselves in self-praise, PartIV. 
and declaring to the world, through the mouths of Chapter 

Sir John Simon and other statesmen, that each of '_ 

our men was worth at least three of their ' pressed Methods of 

, . ., i • i • i recruiting. 

men or conscripts — until we came up leisurely with 
reinforcements — six, nine, or twelve months hence — 
supposing that by such time, there was anything 
still left to come up for. If the Germans were then 
in Paris, Bordeaux, Brest, and Marseilles, there 
would be — temporarily at least — a great saving of 
mortality among the British race. If, on the other 
hand, the Allies had already arrived at Berlin without 
us, what greater triumph for the voluntary principle 
could possibly be imagined ? 

Putting these views and considerations — which 
have so much impressed us all in our own recent 
discussions — before a French officer, I found him 
obstinate in viewing the matter at a different angle. 
He was inclined to lay stress on the case of Northern 
France, and even more on that of Belgium, whose 
resistance to the German invasion we had wished for 
and encouraged, and who was engaged in fighting 
our battles quite as much as her own. The voluntary 
principle, in spite of its triumphs at home — which he 
was not concerned to dispute — had not, he thought, 
as yet been remarkably triumphant abroad; and 
nine months had gone by since war began. 

He insisted, moreover, that for years before war 
was declared, our great British statesmen could not 
have been ignorant of the European situation, either 
in its political or its military aspects. Such ignorance 
was inconceivable. They must have suspected the 
intentions of Germany, and they must have known 
the numbers of her army. England had common 



378 DEMOCRACY AND NATIONAL SERVICE 

PaetIV. interests with France. Common interests, if there 
Chapter be a loyal understanding, involve equal sacrifices — 

'_ equality of sacrifice not merely when the push comes, 

Methods of b u t in advance of the crisis, in preparation for it — a 
much more difficult matter. Why then had not our 
Government told the British people long ago what 
sacrifice its safety, no less than its honour, required 
of it to give ? 

I felt, after talking to my friend for some time, 
that although he rated our nation in some ways very 
highly indeed, although he was grateful for our 
assistance, hopeful of the future, confident that in 
Lord Kitchener we had found our man, nothing — 
nothing — not even selections from Mr. Spender's 
articles in the Westminster Gazette, or from Sir John 
Simon's speeches, or Sir John Brunner's assurances 
about the protection afforded by international law — 
could induce him to share our own enthusiasm for 
the voluntary system. . . . The triumph of the 
voluntary system, he cried bitterly, is a German 
triumph : it is the ruin of Belgium and the devastation 
of France. 

And looking at the matter from a Frenchman's 
point of view, there is something to be said for his 
contention. 

Apart from any objections which may exist to 
British methods of recruiting since war broke out — 
to their injustice, want of dignity, and generally to 
their demoralising effect on public opinion — there 
are several still more urgent questions to be con- 
sidered. Have those methods been adequate % And 
if so, are they going to continue adequate to the end % 
Is there, in short, any practical need for conscription ? 



NEED FOR NATIONAL SERVICE 379 

We do not answer these questions by insisting PabtIV. 
that, if there had been conscription in the past, we Chapter 

should have been in a much stronger position when ; 

war broke out ; or by proving to our own satisfaction, Methods of 
that if we had possessed a national army, war would 
never have occurred. Such considerations as these 
are by no means done with ; they are indeed still 
very important ; but they lie rather aside from the 
immediate question with which we are now faced, 
and which, for lack of any clear guidance from those 
in authority, many of us have been endeavouring of 
late to solve by the light of our own judgment. 

The answer which the facts supply does not seem 
to be in any doubt. We need conscription to bring 
this war to a victorious conclusion. We need con- 
scription no less in order that we may impose terms 
of lasting peace. Conscription is essential to the 
proper organisation not only of our manhood, but 
also of our national resources. 1 Judging by the 
increasing size, frequency, and shrillness of recent 
recruiting advertisements, conscription would seem 
to be equally essential in order to secure the number 
of recruits necessary for making good the wastage of 
war, even in the present preliminary stage of the war. 
And morally, conscription is essential in order that 
the whole nation may realise, before it is too late, the 
life-or-death nature of the present struggle ; in order 
also that other nations — our Allies as well as our 
enemies — may understand — what they certainly do 
not understand at present — that our spirit is as firm 
and self-sacrificing as their own. 

The voluntary system has broken down long ago. 

1 This aspect is very cogently stated in Mr. Shaw Sparrow's letter to 
the Westminster Gazette quoted on pp. 370-371. 



380 DEMOCRACY AND NATIONAL SERVICE 

Part iv. It broke down on the day when the King of England 

Chapter declared war upon the Emperor of Germany. From 

VL that moment it was obvious that, in a prolonged war, 

Methods of the voluntary system could not be relied upon to 

mg ' give us, in an orderly and businesslike way, the 

numbers which we should certainly require. It was 

also obvious that it was just as inadequate for the 

purpose of introducing speed, order, and efficiency 

into the industrial world, as strength into our military 

affairs. 

So far, however, most of the accredited oracles of 
Government have either denounced national military 
service as un-English, and a sin against freedom ; or 
else they have evaded the issue, consoling their 
various audiences with the reflection, that it will be 
time enough to talk of compulsion, when it is clearly 
demonstrated that the voluntary system can no longer 
give us what we need. It seems improvident to 
wait until the need has been proved by the painful 
process of failure. The curses of many dead nations 
lie upon the procrastination of statesmen, who waited 
for breakdown to prove the necessity of sacrifice. 
Compulsion, like other great changes, cannot be 
systematised and put through in a day. It needs 
preparation. If the shoe begins to pinch severely 
in August, and we only then determine to adopt 
conscription, what relief can we hope to experience 
before the following midsummer ? And in what 
condition of lameness may the British Empire be by 
then ? 

" But what," it may be asked, " of all the official 
' and semi-official statements which have been uttered 
' in a contrary sense ? Surely the nation is bound 
' to trust its own Government, even although no 



VALUE OF OFFICIAL ASSURANCES 381 
1 facts and figures are offered in support of their Part iv. 

' assurances." Chapter 

Unfortunately it is impossible to place an implicit '_ 

faith in official and semi-official statements, unless Methods of 

•iiiiT n recruiting. 

we have certain knowledge that they are confirmed 
by the facts. There has been an abundance of such 
statements in recent years — with regard to the 
innocence of Germany's intentions — with regard to 
the adequacy of our own preparations — while only 
a few weeks ago Mr. Asquith himself was assuring us 
that neither the operations of our own army, nor 
those of our Allies' armies, had ever been crippled, 
or even hampered, by any want of munitions. 

When, therefore, assurances flow from the same 
source — assurances that there is no need for com- 
pulsory military service — that the voluntary system 
has given, is giving, and will continue to give us all 
we require — we may be forgiven for expressing our 
incredulity. Such official and semi - official state- 
ments are not supported by any clear proofs. They 
are contradicted by much that we have heard from 
persons who are both honest, and in a position to know. 
They are discredited by our own eyes when we read the 
recruiting advertisements and posters. It seems safer, 
therefore, to dismiss these official and semi-official 
assurances, and trust for once to our instinct and 
the evidence of our own senses. It seems safer also 
not to wait for complete breakdown in war, or 
mortifying failure in negotiations for peace, in order 
to have the need for national service established 
beyond a doubt. 



CHAPTER VII 



PERVERSITIES OF THE ANTI-MILITARIST SPIRIT 



VII. 

Perver- 
sities of 
the anti- 
militarist 
spirit. 



Part iv. If ' National Service,' or ' Conscription,' has 
Chapter actually become necessary already, or may con- 
ceivably become so before long, it seems worth 
while to glance at some of the considerations which 
have been urged in favour of this system in the 
past, and also to examine some of the causes and 
conditions which have hitherto led public opinion in 
the United Kingdom, as well as in several of the 
Dominions, to regard the principle of compulsion 
with hostility and distrust. 

Beyond the question, whether the system of 
recruiting, which has been employed during the 
present war, can correctly be described as ' voluntary,' 
there is the further question, whether the system, 
which is in use at ordinary times, and which produces 
some 35,000 men per annum, can be so described. 
Lord Roberts always maintained that it could not, and 
that its true title was ' the Conscription of Hunger.' 

Any one who has watched the recruiting-sergeant 
at work, on a raw cold day of winter or early spring, 
will be inclined to agree with Lord Roberts. A fine, 
good-humoured, well-fed, well -set -up fellow, in a 
handsome uniform, with rows of medals which light 
up the mean and dingy street, lays himself alongside 

382 



NORMAL RECRUITING METHODS 383 

some half -starved poor devil, down in his luck, with part iv. 
not a rag to his back that the north wind doesn't Chapter 
blow through. The appetites and vanities of the ' 

latter are all of them morbidly alert — hunger, thirst, Perver - 
the desire for warmth, and to cut a smart figure in the anti- 
the world. The astute sergeant, though no professor Bpilit . 
of psychology, understands the case thoroughly, as he 
marks down his man. He greets him heartily with 
a ' good day ' that sends a glow through him, even 
before the drink at the Goat and Compasses, or Green 
Dragon has been tossed off, and the King's shilling 
accepted. 

Not that there is any need for pity or regret 
at the conclusion of such an episode as this ; and 
assuredly it is no uncommon one. These young men 
with empty bellies, and no very obvious way of filling 
them, in nine cases out of ten enlistment saves them ; 
perhaps in more even than that. 

But talk about compulsion and the voluntary 
principle ! What strikes the observer most about 
such a scene as this is certainly not anything which 
can be truly termed ' voluntary.' If one chooses to 
put things into ugly words — which is sometimes 
useful, in order to give a shock to good people who 
are tending towards self -righteousness in their worship 
of phrases — this is the compulsion of hunger and 
misery. It might even be contended that it was not 
only compulsion, but a mean, sniggling kind of 
compulsion, taking advantage of a starving man. 1 

The law is very chary of enforcing promises made 
under duress. If a man dying of thirst signs his 
birthright away, or binds himself in service for a term 

1 Certain paragraphs of this chapter, in their original form, have been 
construed in some quarters as suggesting that 90 per cent or more of the 



384 DEMOCEACY AND NATIONAL SERVICE 



VII. 

Perver- 
sities of 
the anti- 
militarist 
spirit. •' 



PaetIv, of years, in exchange for a glass of water, the ink 
Chapter an d paper have no validity. But the recruit is 
firmly bound. He has made a contract to give his 
labour, and to risk his life for a long period of years, 
at a wage which is certainly below the market rate ; 
and he is held to it. Things much more ' voluntary ' 
than this have been dubbed ' slavery,' and denounced 
as ' tainted with servile conditions.' And the loudest 
denunciators have been precisely those anti-militarists, 
who uphold our ' voluntary ' system with the hottest 
fervour, while reprobating all forms of ' compulsion ' 
with horror. 

We have heard much caustic abuse of the National 
Service League. It has been accused of talking ' the 
cant of compulsion ' ; by which has been meant that 
certain of its members have put in the forefront of 
their argument the moral and physical advantages 



annual intake of recruits for the British Army have enlisted under pressure 
of hunger or want. Whether or not this was a reasonable construction to 
place upon certain sentences is a question which I am not concerned to 
discuss. It is, however, of some importance that the true intention should 
be put beyond the possibility of doubt. When I used the phrase ' nine out 
of ten . . . more even than that ' I intended to refer, not to those who are 
induced to enlist by the pressure of want, but to those who, having enlisted 
under the pressure of want, are made men of by the profession of arms. 
I am of course well aware that among those who have enlisted as privates 
in the British Army there are very many (some of whom I have the honour 
to number among my friends) who have been led to do so by quite different 
motives — by the love of travel and adventure, and of the military career 
for its own sake. The point, however, of my argument was, and still 
remains, that nothing approaching 35,000 recruits could be got annually 
in normal times, except by a form of pressure which the most distinguished 
soldier of his day described as ' the Conscription of Hunger.'' Mr. G. G. 
Coulton, writing in the Spectator (July 3, 1915), calls attention to a semi- 
official pronouncement which is of some interest: "In 1911 an official 
book against compulsory service was published by Sir Ian Hamilton, under 
the auspices of Lord Haldane, who specially based himself, in the first two 
pages of his preface, on Sir Ian's wide knowledge of British recruiting 
conditions. On p. 106 of that book Sir Ian says plainly : ' The majority of 
eighteen-to -nineteen-year -old recruits enlist because they have just ceased to be 
boys, and are unable to find regular employment as men. About four-fifths of 
them come to us because they cannot get a job at fifteen shillings a week.' " 



MORAL AND ECONOMIC ASPECTS 385 

which, they imagine universal military training would Part iv. 
confer upon the nation. Some may possibly have Chapter 

gone too far, and lost sight of the need of the nation, [ 

in their enthusiasm for the improvement of the Perver " 

Sltl6S 01 

individual. But if occasionally their arguments theauti- 

, i c p t 1 1 • i i i militarist 

assume the form ot cant, can their lapse be compared S p ir i t . 
with the cant which tells the world smugly that the 
British Army is recruited strictly on the voluntary 
principle ? 

The ' economic argument,' as it is called, is 
another example. The country would be faced with 
ruin, we are told, if every able-bodied man had to 
give ' two of the best years of his life,' * and a week 
or two out of each of the ensuing seven, to ' un- 
productive ' labour. Sums have been worked out 
to hundreds of millions sterling, with the object of 
showing that the national loss, during a single genera- 
tion, would make the national debt appear insignifi- 
cant. How could Britain maintain her industrial 
pre-eminence weighted with such a handicap ? 

One answer is that Britain, buoyed up though 
she has been by her voluntary system, has not lately 
been outstripping those of her competitors who 
carried this very handicap which it is now proposed 
that she should carry ; that she has not even been 
maintaining her relative position in the industrial 
world in comparison, for example, with Germany. 

But there is also another answer. If you take 
a youth at the plastic age when he has reached 
manhood, feed him on wholesome food, subject him 
to vigorous and varied exercise, mainly in the open 
air, discipline him, train him to co-operation with 

1 This was the German period of training for infantry. The National 
Service League proposal was four months. 

2c 



386 DEMOCRACY AND NATIONAL SERVICE 

Part iv. his fellows, make him smart and swift in falling-to 
Chapter at whatever work comes under his hand, you are 

J, thereby giving him precisely what, for his own sake 

reiver- an d that of the country, is most needed at the present 

theanti- time. You are giving him the chance of developing 

spMt nst ms bodily strength under healthy conditions, and 

you are giving him a general education and moral 

training which, in the great majority of cases, will 

be of great value to him in all his after life. 

It is the regret of every one, who has studied our 
industrial system from within, that men wear out too 
soon. By the time a man reaches his fortieth year — 
often earlier — he is too apt, in many vocations, to 
be an old man ; and for that reason he is in danger 
of being shoved out of his place by a younger 
generation. 

This premature and, for the most part, unnecessary 
ageing is the real economic loss. If by taking two 
years out of a man's life as he enters manhood, if by 
improving his physique and helping him to form 
healthy habits, you can thereby add on ten or fifteen 
years to his industrial efficiency, you are not only 
contributing to his own happiness, but are also adding 
enormously to the wealth and prosperity of the 
country. Any one indeed, who chooses to work out 
sums upon this hypothesis, will hardly regard the 
national debt as a large enough unit for comparison. 
The kernel of this matter is, that men wear out in 
the working classes earlier than in others, mainly 
because they have no break, no rest, no change, 
from the day they leave school to take up a trade, 
till the day when they have to hand in their checks 
for good and all. It is not effort, but drudgery, which 
most quickly ages a man. It is the rut — straight, 



UNDEE-EATING OF CONSCEIPT AEMIES 387 

dark, narrow, with no horizons, and no general view Part iv. 
of the outside world — which is the greatest of social Chapter 

VII 

dangers. More than anything else it tends to narrow- '_ 

ness of sympathy and bitterness of heart. Perver- 

sities of 

It would be cant to claim that universal military the anti- 
training will get rid of this secular evil ; but to say spMt*™ 
that it will help to diminish it is merely the truth. 
The real ' cant ' is to talk about the economic loss 
under conscription ; for there would undoubtedly be 
an immense economic gain. 

But indeed the advocacy of the voluntary system 
is stuffed full of cant. . . . We are all proud of 
our army ; and rightly so. But the opponents of 
universal military service carry their pride much 
further than the soldiers themselves. They con- 
trast our army, to its enormous advantage, with the 
conscript armies of the continent, which they regard 
as consisting of vastly inferior fighting men — of men, 
in a sense despicable, inasmuch as their meek spirits 
have submitted tamely to conscription. 

Colonel Seely, who, when he touches arithmetic 
soars at once into the region of poetry, has pronounced 
confidently that one of our voluntary soldiers is 
worth ten men whom the law compels to serve. 
Sir John Simon was still of opinion — even after several 
months of war — that one of our volunteers was worth 
at least three conscripts ; and he was convinced that 
the Kaiser himself already knew it. What a splendid 
thing if Colonel Seely were right, or even if Sir John 
Simon were right ! 

But is either of them right ? So far as our 
voluntary army is superior — and it was undoubtedly 
superior in certain respects at the beginning of the 
war — it was surely not because it was a ' voluntary ' 



388 DEMOCRACY AND NATIONAL SERVICE 

pabt iv. army ; but because, on the average, it bad undergone 
Chapter a longer and more thorough course of training than 

1 the troops against which it was called upon to fight. 

Perver- Yine as its spirit was, and high as were both its 

theanti- courage and its intelligence, who has ever heard 

spirit! 11 ' a single soldier maintain that — measured through 

and through — it was in those respects superior 

to the troops alongside which, or against which it 

fought ? 

As the war has continued month after month, 
and men with only a few months' training have been 
drafted across the Channel to supply the British 
wastage of war, even this initial superiority which 
came of longer and more thorough training has 
gradually been worn away. A time will come, no 
doubt — possibly it has already come — when Germany, 
having used up her trained soldiers of sound physique, 
has to fall back upon an inferior quality. But that 
is merely exhaustion. It does not prove the 
superiority of the voluntary system. It does not 
affect the comparison between men of equal stamina 
and spirit — one set of whom has been trained before- 
hand in arms — the other not put into training until 
war began. 

Possibly Colonel Seely spoke somewhat lightly 
and thoughtlessly in those serene days before the war- 
cloud burst ; but Sir John Simon spoke deliberately 
— his was the voice of the Cabinet, after months of 
grim warfare. To describe his utterances as cant 
does not seem unjust, though possibly it is inadequate. 
We are proud of our army, not merely because of 
its fine qualities, but for the very fact that it is 
what we choose to call a ' voluntary ' army. But 
what do they say of it in foreign countries ? What 



THE CANT OF MILITARISM 389 

did the whole of Europe say of it during the South Part iv. 
African War ? What are the Germans saying of it Chapter 
now? 1^1 

Naturally prejudice has led them to view the facts Perver- 

sities of 

at a different angle. They have seldom referred to theanti- 
the ' voluntary ' character of our army. That was spirit!™* 
not the aspect which attracted their attention, so 
much as the other aspect, that our soldiers received 
pay, and therefore, according to German notions, 
* fought for hire.' At the time of the South African 
War all continental nations said of our army what 
the Germans still say — not that it was a ' voluntary ' 
army, but that it was a ' mercenary ' army ; and this 
is a much less pleasant-sounding term. 1 

In this accusation we find the other kind of cant — 
the cant of militarism. For if ours is a mercenary 
army, so is their own, in so far as the officers and 
non-commissioned officers are concerned. But as a 
matter of fact no part, either of our army or the 
existing German army, can with any truth be described 
as ' mercenaries ' ; for this is a term applicable only 
to armies — much more common in the past in 
Germany than anywhere else — who were hired out 
to fight abroad in quarrels which were not their own. 

But although this German accusation against the 
character of our troops is pure cant, it would not 
be wholly so were it levelled against the British 
people. Not our army, but we ourselves, are the 

1 The pay of the French private soldier is, I understand, about a sou — 
a halfpenny — a day. In his eyes the British soldier in the next trench, 
who receives from a shilling to eighteenpence a day— and in the case of 
married men a separation allowance as well — must appear as a kind of 
millionaire. During the South African War the pay of certain volunteer 
regiments reached the figure of five shilings a day for privates. Men serving 
with our army as motor drivers — in comparative safety — receive some- 
thing like six shillings or seven and sixpence a day. 



390 DEMOCRACY AND NATIONAL SERVICE 

part iv. true mercenaries, because we pay others to do for 

Chapter us what other nations do for themselves. In German 

eyes — and perhaps in other eyes as well, which are 

Perver- less willing to see our faults — this charge against the 

theanti- British people appears maintainable. It is incom- 

Sirit! nst prehensible to other nations, why we should refuse to 

recognise that it is any part of our duty, as a people, 

to defend our country ; why we will not admit the 

obligation either to train ourselves to arms in time 

of peace, or to risk our lives in time of war ; why we 

hold obstinately to it that such things are no part of 

our duty as a people, but are only the duty of private 

individuals who love fighting, or who are endowed 

with more than the average sense of duty. 

" As for you, the great British People," writes 
Hexenkiichen contemptuously, " you merely fold your 
' hands, and say self -righteously, that your duty begins 
' and ends with paying certain individuals to fight 
' for you — individuals whose personal interest can be 
' tempted with rewards ; whose weakness of character 
' can be influenced by taunts, and jeers, and threats 
' of dismissal ; or who happen to see their duty in a 
' different light from the great majority which calls 
' itself (and is par excellence) the British People. ..." 
This may be a very prejudiced view of the matter, 
but it is the German view. What they really mean 
when they say that England is to be despised because 
she relies upon a mercenary army, is that England 
is to be despised because, being mercenary, she relies 
upon a professional army. The taunt, when we 
come to analyse it, is found to be levelled, not against 
the hired, but against the hirers ; and although we 
may be very indignant, it is not easy to disprove its 
justice. 



PAY OF THE BRITISH ARMY 391 

The British nation, if not actually the richest, partIV. 
is at any rate one of the richest in the world. It has Chapter 

• VTT 

elected to depend for its safety upon an army which 1 

cannot with justice be called either ' voluntary ' or F .^ eT ~ 
' mercenary,' but which it is fairly near the truth the anti- 
to describe as ' professional.' The theory of our ™ Mt# 
arrangement is that we must somehow, and at the 
cheapest rate, contrive to tempt enough men to 
become professional soldiers to ensure national safety. 
Accordingly we offer such inducements to take up 
the career of arms — instead of the trades of farm 
labourer, miner, carpenter, dock hand, shopkeeper, 
lawyer, physician, or stockbroker — as custom and 
the circumstances of the moment appear to require. 

In an emergency we offer high pay and generous 
separation allowances to the private soldier. In 
normal times we give him less than the market rate 
of wages. 

The pay of junior or subaltern officers is so meagre 
that it cannot, by any possibility, cover the expenses 
which Government insists upon their incurring. 
Captains, majors, and lieutenant-colonels are paid 
much less than the wages of foremen or sub -managers 
in any important industrial undertaking. Even for 
those who attain the most brilliant success in their 
careers, there are no prizes which will stand com- 
parison for a moment with a very moderate degree 
of prosperity in the world of trade or finance. They 
cannot even be compared with the prizes open to the 
bar or the medical profession. 

Hitherto we have obtained our officers largely 
owing to a firmly rooted tradition among the country 
gentlemen and the military families — neither as a 
rule rich men, or even very easy in their circumstances 



392 DEMOCRACY AND NATIONAL SERVICE 

pabtIV. as things go nowadays — many of them veTy poor — 

Chapter a tradition so strong that it is not cant, but plain truth, 

VIL to call it sense of duty. There are other motives, of 

Perver- course, which may lead a boy to choose this profession 

tie anti- — love of adventure, comparative freedom from indoor 

mihtanst j-£^ p} easan t comradeship, and in the case of the 

middle classes, recently risen to affluence, social 

aspirations. But even in the last there is far more 

good than harm ; though in anti-militarist circles it 

is the unworthy aim which is usually dwelt upon with 

a sneering emphasis. For very often, when a man 

has risen from humble circumstances to a fortune, he 

rejoices that his sons should serve the state, since it 

is in his power to make provision. The example of 

his neighbours, whose ancestors have been living on 

their acres since the days of the Plantagenets or 

the Tudors, is a noble example ; and he is wise to 

follow it. 

In the case of the rank and file of our army, a 
contract for a term of years (with obligations con- 
tinuing for a further term of years) is entered into, 
and signed, under the circumstances which have 
already been considered. We are faced here with 
a phenomenon which seems strange in an Age which 
has conceded the right to ' down tools,' even though 
by so doing a solemn engagement is broken — in an 
Age which has become very fastidious about hiring 
agreements of most kinds, very suspicious of anything 
suggestive of ' servile conditions ' or ' forced labour,' 
and which deprecates the idea of penalising breach of 
contract, on the part of a workman, even by process 
in the civil courts. 

As regards a private soldier in the British army, 
however, the Age apparently has no such com- 



THE ANTI-MILITARIST CONSCIENCE 393 

punctions. In a vast number of cases his contract Part iv. 
has been made under pressure of hunger and want. Chapter 

. VTT 

Its obligations last for a long period of years. '_ 

The pay is below the ordinary market rates. Every- Perver- 

sities of 

thing in fact which, in equity, would favour a the anti- 
revision, pleads in favour of the soldier who demands spirit™ 
to be released. But he is not released. It is not a 
case of suing him for damages in the civil courts, but 
of dealing with him under discipline and mutiny 
acts, the terms of which are simple and drastic — 
in peace time imprisonment, in war time death. 
Without these means of enforcing the ' voluntary ' 
system the British people would not feel themselves 
safe. 

This phenomenon seems even stranger, when we 
remember that a large and influential part of the 
British people is not only very fastidious as to the 
terms of all other sorts of hiring agreements, as to 
rates of pay, and as to the conditions under which such 
contracts have been entered into — that it is not only 
most tender in dealing with the breach of such agree- 
ments — but that it also regards the object of the 
agreement for military service with particular sus- 
picion. This section of the British people is anti- 
militarist on conscientious grounds. One would have 
thought, therefore, that it might have been more 
than usually careful to allow the man, who hires 
himself out for lethal purposes, to have the benefit of 
second thoughts ; or even of third, f ourth, and fifth 
thoughts. For he, too, may develop a conscience 
when his belly is no longer empty. But no : to do 
this would endanger the ' voluntary ' system. 

This anti-militarist section of the British people is 
composed of citizens who, if we are to believe their own 



394 DEMOCRACY AND NATIONAL SERVICE 



VII. 

Perver- 
sities of 
the anti- 
militarist 
spirit. 



Part iv. professions, love peace more than other men love it, 
Chapter and hate violence as a deadly sin. They are deter- 
mined not to commit this deadly sin themselves ; 
but being unable to continue in pursuit of their 
material and spiritual affairs, unless others will sin 
in their behalf, they reluctantly agree to hire, at as 
low a price as possible, a number of wild and daredevil 
spirits, drawn from the upper and lower strata of 
society — both of whom they regard as approximating 
to the reprobate type — to defend their property, 
to keep their lives safe, to enforce their Will as it 
is declared by ballot papers and House of Commons 
divisions, and to allow them to continue their careers 
of beneficent self-interest undisturbed. 

But for all that, we are puzzled by the rigour 
with which the contract for military service is enforced, 
even to the last ounce of the pound of flesh. Not a 
murmur of protest comes from this section of the 
British people, although it has professed to take the 
rights of the poorer classes as its special province. The 
explanation probably is that, like King Charles I., 
they have made a mental reservation, and are thus 
enabled to distinguish the case of the soldier from 
that of his brother who engages in a civil occupation. 
Roughly speaking, they choose to regard the 
civilian as virtuous, while the soldier, on the other 
hand, cannot in their opinion safely be presumed to 
be anything of the sort. Sometimes indeed — perhaps 
more often than not — he appears to them to be 
distinctly unvirtuous. The presumption is against 
him ; for if he were really virtuous, how could he 
ever have agreed to become a soldier, even under 
pressure of want ? For regulating the service of such 
men as these force is a regrettable, but necessary, 



ANTI-MILITARIST CONFIDENCE 395 

instrument. The unvirtuous man has agreed to sin, Part iv. 
and the virtuous man acts justly in holding him to Chapter 

his bargain. If a soldier develops a conscience, and " 

insists on ' downing tools ' it is right to imprison him ; Perver- 

. & b . r . sities of 

even in certain circumstances to put him against a the anti- 
wall and shoot him. spirit!™ 

These ideas wear an odd appearance when we 
come to examine them closely, and yet not only did 
they exist, but they were actually very prevalent 
down to the outbreak of the present war. They 
seem to be somewhat prevalent, even now, in various 
quarters. But surely it is strange that virtuous 
citizens should need the protection of unvirtuous 
ones ; that they should underpay ; that they should 
adopt the methods of ' forced labour ' as a necessary 
part of the ' voluntary system ' ; that they should 
imprison and shoot men for breach of hiring agree- 
ments for long periods of years, entered into very 
often under pressure of circumstances. 

But there is a thing even stranger than any of 
these. Considering how jealous the great anti- 
militarist section of our fellow-countrymen is of 
anything which places the army in a position to 
encroach upon, or overawe, the civil power, it seems 
very remarkable that they should nevertheless have 
taken a large number of men — whose morals, in their 
view, were below rather than above the average- 
should have armed them with rifles and bayonets, and 
spent large sums of money in making them as efficient 
as possible for lethal purposes, while refusing firmly to 
arm themselves with anything but ballot-boxes, or 
to make themselves fit for any form of self-defence. 

It seems never to have crossed the minds of the 
anti-militarist section that those whom they thus 



396 DEMOCRACY AND NATIONAL SERVICE 

partIV. regard — if not actually with moral reprehension, 

Chapter at any rate somewhat askance — might perhaps some 

VIL day discover that there were advantages in being 

Perver- armed, and in having become lethally efficient ; that 

the anti- having studied the phenomena of strikes, and having 

mihtanst j^ eTe geen f orce f various kinds at work — hiring 

agreements broken, combinations to bring pressure 
on society successful, rather black things occasionally 
hushed up and forgiven — soldiers might draw their 
own conclusions. Having grown tired of pay lower 
than the market rate, still more tired of moral lectures 
about the wickedness of their particular trade, and 
of tiresome old-fashioned phrases about the sub- 
ordination of the military to the civil power — what if 
they, like other trades and classes, should begin to 
consider the propriety of putting pressure on society, 
since such pressure appears nowadays to be one of the 
recognised instruments for redress of wrongs ? . . . 
Have not professional soldiers the power to put 
pressure on society in the twentieth century, just as 
they have done, again and again, in past times in 
other kingdoms and democracies, where personal 
freedom was so highly esteemed, that even the freedom 
to abstain from defending your country was respected 
by public opinion and the laws of the land ? 

But nonsense ! In Germany, France, Russia, 
Austria, Italy, and other conscript countries armies 
are hundreds of times stronger than our own, while 
the soldiers in these cases are hardly paid enough to 
keep a smoker in pipe -tobacco. And yet they do 
not think of putting pressure on society, or of any- 
thing so horrible. This of course is true ; but then, 
in these instances, the Army is only Society itself 
passing, as it were, like a may-fly, through a certain 



ARMIES AS LIBERATORS 397 

stage in its life-history. Army and Society in the PartIV. 
conscript countries are one and the same. A man Chapter 

• • VTT 

does not think of putting undue pressure upon him- [ 

self. But in our case the Army and Society are ?«rver- 

sitifis of 

not one and the same. Their relations are those of the anti- 
employer and employed, as they were in Rome long SmJ™- 
ago ; and as between employer and employed, there 
are always apt to be questions of pay and position. 

It is useful in this connection to think a little 
of Rome with its ' voluntary ' or ' mercenary ' or 
' professional ' army — an army underpaid at first ; 
afterwards perhaps somewhat overpaid, when it 
occurred to its mind to put pressure on society. 

But Rome in the first century was a very different 
place from England in the twentieth. Very different 
indeed ! The art and rules of war were considerably 
less of an expert's business than they are to-day. 
Two thousand years ago — weapons being still some- 
what elementary — gunpowder not yet discovered — ■ 
no railway trains and tubes, and outer and inner 
circles, which now are as necessary for feeding great 
cities as arteries and veins for keeping the human 
heart going — private citizens, moreover, being not 
altogether unused to acting with violence in self- 
defence — it might have taken, perhaps, 100,000 dis- 
ciplined and well-led professional soldiers a week or 
more to hold the six millions of Greater London by 
the throat. To-day 10,000 could do this with ease 
between breakfast and dinner-time. Certainly a con- 
siderable difference — but somehow not a difference 
which seems altogether reassuring. 

Since the days of Oliver Cromwell the confidence 
of the anti-militarists in the docility of the British 
Army has never experienced any serious shock. But 



398 DEMOCRACY AND NATIONAL SERVICE 

Part iv. yet, according to the theories of this particular school, 
Chapter why should our army alone, of all trades and pro- 
vn " f essions, be expected not to place its own class interests 
Perver- before those of the country ? 

theanti- When professional armies make their first entry 

militarist ^. Q practical politics it is almost always in the role 
of liberators and defenders of justice. An instance 
might easily occur if one or other set of politicians, 
in a fit of madness or presumption, were to ask, or 
order, the British Army to undertake certain opera- 
tions against a section of their fellow-countrymen, 
which the soldiers themselves judged to be contrary 
to justice and their own honour. 

Something of this kind very nearly came to pass 
in March 1914. The Curragh incident, as it was 
called, showed in a flash what a perilous gulf opens, 
when a professional army is mishandled. Politicians, 
who have come by degrees to regard the army — not 
as a national force, or microcosm of the people, but 
as an instrument which electoral success has placed 
temporarily in their hands, and which may therefore 
be used legitimately for forwarding their own party 
ends — have ever been liable to blunder in this 
direction. 

Whatever may have been the merits of the Curragh 
case, the part which the British Army was asked and 
expected to play on that occasion, was one which 
no democratic Government would have dared to 
order a conscript army to undertake, until it had been 
ascertained, beyond any possibility of doubt, that 
the country as a whole believed extreme measures 
to be necessary for the national safety. 

If professional soldiers, however high and patriotic 
their spirit, be treated as mercenaries — as if, in their 



SERVICE AND SUFFRAGE 399 

dealings with their fellow - countrymen, they had Part iv. 
neither souls nor consciences — it can be no matter for Chapter 

surprise if they should come by insensible degrees 1 

to think and act as professional armies have so Perver- 
often acted in the past. . . . One set or other ot theanti- 

, i',' ,i •■ • militarist 

party politicians — the occurrence is quite as conceiv- spirit . 
able in the case of a Unionist Government as in that 
of a Liberal — issues certain orders, which it would 
never dare to issue to a conscript army, and these 
orders, to its immense surprise, are not obeyed. 
Thereupon a Government, which only the day before 
seemed to be established securely on a House of 
Commons majority and the rock of tradition, is seen 
to be powerless. The army in its own eyes — possibly 
in that of public opinion also — has stood between the 
people and injustice. It has refused to be made the 
instrument for performing an act of tyranny and 
oppression. Possibly in sorrow and disgust it dis- 
solves itself and ceases to exist. Possibly, on the 
other hand, it glows with the approbation of its own 
conscience ; begins to admire its own strength, and 
not improbably to wonder, if it might not be good for 
the country were soldiers to put forth their strong 
arm rather more often, in order to restrain the poli- 
ticians from following evil courses. This of course is 
the end of democracy and the beginning of militarism. 
An army which starts by playing the popular 
role of benefactor, or liberator, will end very speedily 
by becoming the instrument of a military despotism. 
We need look no farther back than Cromwell and 
his major-generals for an example. We have been 
in the habit of regarding such contingencies as remote 
and mediaeval ; none the less we had all but started 
on this fatal course in the spring and summer of last 



400 DEMOCRACY AND NATIONAL SERVICE 

Part iv. year. We were then saved, not by the wisdom of 
Chapter statesmen — for these only increased the danger by 

! the spectacle which they afforded of timidity, temper, 

p ° rver \ and equivocation — but solelv by the present war 

sities of m J- J J r 

the anti- which, though it has brought us many horrors, has 
spirit. " averted, for a time at least, what is infinitely the 
worst of all. 

The conclusion is plain. A democracy which asserts 
the right of manhood suffrage, while denying the duty 
of manhood service, is living in a fool's paradise. 

A democracy which does not fully identify itself 
with its army, which does not treat its army with 
honour and as an equal, but which treats it, on the 
contrary, as ill-bred and ill-tempered people treat 
their servants — with a mixture, that is, of fault- 
finding and condescension — is following a very perilous 
path. 

An army which does not receive the treatment it 
deserves, and which at the same time is ordered by 
the politicians to perform services which, upon 
occasions, it may hold to be inconsistent with its 
honour, is a danger to the state. 

A democracy which, having refused to train itself 
for its own defence, thinks nevertheless that it can 
safely raise the issue of ' the Army versus the People,' 
is mad. 



CHAPTER VIII 

SOME HISTORICAL REFLECTIONS 

Prior to the present war the chief bugbears PartIV. 

encountered by Lord Eoberts, and indeed by all Chapter 

■ • • VIII 
others whose aim it was to provide this country with ! 

an army numerically fit to support its policy, were some_ 

the objections, real or imaginary, of the British race reflections. 

to compulsory service, and more particularly to 

compulsory service in foreign lands. These prejudices 

were true types of the bugbear ; for they were born 

out of opinion and not out of the facts. 

The smaller fry of politicians, whose fears — like 

those of the monkeys — are more easily excited by 

the front-row of things which are visible, than by 

the real dangers which lurk behind in the shadow, 

are always much more terrified of opinion than of 

the facts. This is precisely why most politicians 

remain all their lives more unfit than any other class 

of man for governing a country. Give one of these 

his choice — ask him whether he will prefer to support 

a cause where the facts are with him, but opinion is 

likely for many years to be running hard against him, 

or another cause where these conditions are reversed 

— of course he will never hesitate a moment about 

choosing the latter. And very probably his manner 

401 2d 



402 DEMOCRACY AND NATIONAL SERVICE 

Pabt iv. of answering will indicate, that he thinks you insult 
Chapter his intelligence by asking such a question. 

; It is only the very rare type of big, patient poli- 

Some tician, who realises that the facts cannot be changed 

reflections, by opinion, and that in the end opinion must be 

changed by the facts, if the two happen to be opposed. 

Such a one chooses accordingly, to follow the facts in 

spite of unpopularity. 

The little fellows, on the contrary, with their 
large ears glued anxiously to the ground, keep ever 
muttering to themselves, and chaunting in a sort of 
rhythmical chorus, the most despicable incantation 
in the whole political vocabulary : — " We who aspire 
' to be leaders of the People must see to it that we are 
' never in advance of the People. . . . The People 
' will never stand this : the People will never stand 
' that. . . . Away with it therefore ; and if possible 
1 attach it like a mill-stone round the necks of our 
' enemies." 

Of course they are quite wrong. The People will 
stand anything which is necessary for the national 
welfare, if the matter is explained 'to them by a big 
enough man in accents of sincerity. 

A defensive force which will on no account cross 
the frontier is no defensive force at all. It is only 
a laughing-stock. 

A frontier is sometimes an arbitrary line drawn 
across meadow and plough ; sometimes a river ; 
sometimes a mountain range ; sometimes, as with 
ourselves, it is a narrow strip of sea — a ' great ditch,' 
as Cromwell called it contemptuously. 

The awful significance, however, of the word 
' frontier ' seems to deepen and darken as we pass 



THE HONOUR OF THE ARMY 403 

from the first example to the fourth. And there is partIV. 
apparently something more in this feeling than the Chapter 

terrors of the channel crossing or of a foreign language. ; 

Territorials may be taken to Ireland, which is a , Some . , 

. /-s i • i historical 

longer sea -journey than from Dover to Calais ; out reflections. 
to be ' butchered abroad ' — horrible ! 

It is horrible enough to be butchered anywhere, 
but why more horrible in the valley of the Rhine 
than in that of the Thames ? If national safety 
demands butchery, as it has often done in the past, 
surely the butchery of 50,000 brave men on the 
borders of Luxemburg is a less evil than the butchery 
of twice that number in the vicinity of Norwich ? 
And if we are to consider national comfort as well as 
safety, it is surely wise to follow the German example 
and fight in any man's country rather than in 
our own. The only question of real importance 
is this : — At what place will the sacrifice of life 
be most effective for the defence of the country ? 
If we can answer that we shall know also where 
it will be lightest. 1 

The school of political thought which remained 
predominant throughout the great industrial epoch 
(1832-1886) bitterly resented the assumption, made by 
certain classes, that the profession of arms was more 
honourable in its nature, than commerce and other 
peaceful pursuits. The destruction of this supposed 
fallacy produced a great literature, and even a con- 
siderable amount of poetry. It was a frequent theme 
at the opening of literary institutes and technical 
colleges, and also at festivals of chambers of commerce 

1 Once more it is desirable to correct the erroneous impression that the 
conscript armies of continental powers are under no liability to serve outside 
their own territories or overseas. 



404 DEMOCRACY AND NATIONAL SERVICE 

part iv. and municipalities. Professors of Political Economy 

Chapter expounded the true doctrine with, great vehemence, 

T ' and sermons were preached without number upon 

some the well-worn text about the victories of peace. 

historical . . . • ■ tj_ 

reflections. This reaction was salutary up to a point. It 
swept away a vast quantity of superannuated rubbish. 
International relations were at this time just as much 
cumbered with old meaningless phrases of a certain 
sort, in which vainglory was the chief ingredient, as 
they have recently been cumbered with others of a dif- 
ferent sort in which indolence was the chief ingredient. 
Inefficiency, indifference, idleness, trifling, and extra- 
vagance were a standing charge against soldiers as 
a class ; and though they were never true charges 
against the class, they were true, for two generations 
following after Waterloo, against a large number of 
individuals. But this reaction, like most other re- 
actions, swept away too much. 

A mercenary soldiery which looks to enrich itself 
by pay and plunder is an ignoble institution. It 
has no right to give itself airs of honour, and must be 
judged like company promotion, trusts, or any of 
the many other predatory professions of modern 
times. It is also a national danger, inasmuch as its 
personal interest is to foment wars. The British 
Army has never been open to this charge in any 
period of its history. 

A profession in which it is only possible, by the most 
severe self-denial and economy, for an officer — even 
after he has arrived at success — to live on his pay, to 
marry, and to bring up a family, can hardly be ranked 
as a money-making career. Pecuniary motives, 
indeed, were never the charge against ' the military ' 
except among the stump-orator class. But pro- 



THE PEOFESSION OF ARMS 405 

fessional indifference and inefficiency were, at that part iv. 
particular time, not only seriously alleged, but were Chapter 

also not infrequently true. It was a good thing that ; 

slackness should be swept away. That it has been Sonie 

x ^ historical 

swept away pretty thoroughly, every one who has reflections. 
known anything about the Army for a generation 
past, is well aware. 

But the much-resented claim to a superiority in 
the matter of honour is well founded, and no amount 
of philosophising or political-economising will ever 
shake it. Clearly it is more honourable for a man 
to risk his life, and what is infinitely more important 
— his reputation and his whole future career — in 
defence of his country, than it is merely to build up 
a competency or a fortune. The soldier's profession 
is beset by other and greater dangers than the physical. 
Money-making pursuits are not only safer for the skin, 
but in them a blunder, or even a series of blunders, 
does not banish the hope of ultimate success. The 
man of business has chances of retrieving his position. 
Many bankrupts have died in affluence. In politics, 
a man with a plausible tongue and a certain quality 
of courage, will usually succeed in eluding the con- 
sequences of his mistakes, by laying the blame on 
other people's shoulders. But the soldier is rarely 
given a second chance ; and he may easily come down 
at the first chance, through sheer ill-luck, and not 
through any fault of his own. Such a profession 
confers honour upon its members. 

Law, trade, and finance are not in themselves, as 
was at one time thought, dishonourable pursuits ; 
but neither are they in themselves honourable. They 
are neither the one nor the other. It casts no slur 
upon a man to be a lawyer, a tradesman, or a banker ; 



406 DEMOCRACY AND NATIONAL SERVICE 

Part iv. but neither does it confer upon him any honour. 

Chapter But military service does confer an honour. The 

__' devotion, hardship, and danger of the soldier's life are 

some not rewarded upon a commercial basis, or reckoned 

historical . ■*■ 

reflections, m that currency. 

Some people are inclined to mock at the respect — 
exaggerated as they think — which is paid by conscript 
countries to their armies. For all its excesses and 
absurdities, this respect is founded upon a true 
principle — a truer principle of conduct than our own. 
In countries where most of the able-bodied men 
have given some years of their lives gratuitously to 
the service of their country, the fact is brought home 
to them, that such service is of a different character 
from the benefits which they subsequently confer 
upon the State by their industry and thrift, or by 
growing rich. 

From the national point of view, it is ennobling 
that at some period of their lives the great majority 
of citizens should have served the commonwealth 
disinterestedly. This after all is the only principle 
which will support a commonwealth. For a common- 
wealth will not stand against the shocks, which 
history teaches us to beware of, merely by dropping 
papers, marked with a cross, into a ballot-box once 
every five years, or even oftener. It will not stand 
merely by taking an intelligent interest in events, 
by attending meetings and reading the newspapers, 
and by indulging in outbursts of indignation or en- 
thusiasm. It will only stand by virtue of personal 
service, and by the readiness of the whole people, 
generation by generation, to give their lives and — 
what is much harder to face — the time and irksome 
preparation which are necessary for making the 



A THEORY OF BRITISH FREEDOM 407 

sacrifice of their lives — should it be called for — PartIV. 

effective for its purpose. Chapter 

If the mass of the people, even when they have ' 

realised the need, will not accept the obligation of Some . 
national service they must be prepared to see their reflections. 
institutions perish, to lose control of their own 
destinies, and to welcome another master than 
Democracy, who it may well be, will not put them 
to the trouble of dropping papers, marked with a 
cross, into ballot-boxes once in five years, or indeed 
at all. For a State may continue to exist even if 
deprived of ballot-boxes ; but it is doomed if its 
citizens will not in time prepare themselves to defend 
it with their lives. 

The memories of the press-gang and the militia 
ballot are dim. Both belong to a past which it is 
the custom to refer to with reprobation. Both were 
inconsistent with equal comradeship between classes ; 
with justice, dignity, honour, and the unity of the 
nation ; and on these grounds they are rightly 
condemned. 

But the press-gang and the militia ballot have 
been condemned, and are still condemned, upon other 
grounds which do not seem so firm. Both have 
been condemned as contravening that great and 
laudable principle of British freedom which lays it 
down that those who like fighting, or prefer it to 
other evils — like starvation and imprisonment — or 
who can be bribed, or in some other way persuaded 
to fight, should enjoy the monopoly of being 
' butchered,' both abroad and at home. And it has 
been further maintained by those who held these 
views, that people who do not like fighting, but choose 
rather to stay at home talking, criticising, enjoying 



408 DEMOCRACY AND NATIONAL SERVICE 

Pabt iv. fine thrills of patriotism, making money, and sleeping 
Chapter under cover, have some kind of divine right to go on 

' enjoying that form of existence undisturbed. Since 

some the Wars of the Roses the latter class has usually 
reflections, been in a great majority in England. Even during 
the Cromwellian Civil War the numbers of men, 
capable of bearing arms, who actually bore them, 
was only a smallish fraction of the entire population. 
The moral ideals of any community, like other 
things, are apt to be settled by numbers. With the 
extension of popular government, and the increase 
of the electorate, this tendency will assert itself more 
and more. But providing the people are dealt with 
plainly and frankly, without flattery or deceit — like 
men and not as if they were greedy children — the 
moral sense of a democracy will probably be sounder 
and stronger than that of any other form of State. 

Even in England, however, there have been 
lapses, during which the people have not been so 
treated, and the popular spirit has sunk, owing to 
mean leadership, into degradation. During the whole 
of the industrial epoch the idea steadily gained in 
strength, that those whose battles were fought for 
them by others, approached more nearly to the type 
of the perfect citizen than those others who actually 
fought the battles ; that the protected were worthier 
than the protectors. 

According to this view the true meaning of 
* freedom ' was exemption from personal service. 
The whole duty of the virtuous citizen with regard 
to the defence of his country began and ended with 
paying a policeman. With the disappearance of 
imminent and visible danger, the reprobate qualities 
of the soldier became speedily a pain and a scandal 



NINETEENTH CENTURY NOTIONS 409 

to godly men. In time of peace he was apt to be PartIv. 
sneered at and decried as an idler and a spendthrift, Chapter 

who would not stand well in a moral comparison with ' 

those steady fellows, who had remained at home, , So " ie . , 

J m . historical 

working hard at their vocations and investing their reflections. 
savings. 

The soldier, moreover, according to Political 
Economy, was occupied in a non-productive trade, 
and therefore it was contrary to the principles of that 
science to waste more money upon him than could 
be avoided. Also it was prudent not to show too 
much gratitude to those who had done the fighting, 
lest they should become presumptuous and for- 
midable. 

This conception of the relations between the army 
and the civilian population has been specially marked 
at several periods in our history — after the Crom- 
wellian wars ; after the Marlborough wars ; after 
1757 ; but during the half century which followed 
Waterloo it seemed to have established itself per- 
manently as an article of our political creed. 

After 1815 there was an utter weariness of fighting, 
following upon nearly a quarter of a century of war. 
The heroism of Wellington's armies was still tainted 
in the popular memory by the fact that the prisons 
had been opened to find him recruits. The industrial 
expansion and prodigious growth of material wealth 
absorbed men's minds. Middle-class ideals, middle- 
class prosperity, middle -class irritation against a 
military caste which, in spite of its comparative 
poverty, continued with some success to assert its 
social superiority, combined against the army in 
popular discussions. The honest belief that wars 
were an anachronism, and that the world was now 



410 DEMOCRACY AND NATIONAL SERVICE 

Part iv. launched upon an interminable era of peace, clothed 

Chapter the nakedness of class prejudice with some kind of 

vnL philosophic raiment. Soldiers were no longer needed ; 

some w ]w then should they continue to claim the lion's 

historical , „-, ,, ... 

reflections, snare ot honourable recognition { 

Up to August 1914 the chief difficulties in the 
way of army reformers were how to overcome the 
firmly-rooted ideas that preparations for war upon a 
great scale were not really essential to security, and 
that, on those rare occasions when fighting might be 
necessary, it should not be undertaken by the most 
virtuous class of citizens, but by others whose lives 
had a lower value. If the citizen paid it was enough ; 
and he claimed the right to grumble even at paying. 
This was the old Liberal faith of the eight een-fif ties, 
and it remained the faith of the straitest Radical sect, 
until German guns began to batter down the forts of 
Liege. 

But any one who remembers the state of public 
opinion between 1870 and 1890, or who has read the 
political memoirs of that time, will realise that a change 
has been, very slowly and gradually, stealing over public 
opinion ever since the end of that epoch. In those 
earlier times the only danger which disturbed our 
national equanimity, and that only very slightly, 
was the approach of Russia towards the north-western 
frontier of India. The volunteer movement came 
to be regarded more and more by ordinary people 
in the light of a healthy and manly recreation, rather 
than as a duty. A lad would make his choice, very 
much as if volunteering were on a par with rowing, 
sailing, hunting, or polo. It is probably no exaggera- 
tion to say that nine volunteers out of every ten, who 



A CHANGE OF TONE 411 

enrolled themselves between 1870 and 1890, never PartIV. 
believed for a single moment that there was a chance Chapter 

VTIT 

of the country having need of their services. Con- ' 

sequently, except in the case of a few extreme ^ e . 
enthusiasts, it never appeared that there was any- reflection. 
thing unpatriotic in not joining the volunteers. 

One has only to compare this with the attitude 
which has prevailed since the Territorial Army came 
into existence, to realise that there has been a stirring 
of the waters, and that in certain quarters a change 
had taken place in the national mood. With regard 
to the Territorials the attitude of those who joined, 
of those who did not join, of the politicians, of the 
press, of public opinion generally was markedly 
different from the old attitude. It was significant 
that a man who did not join was often disposed to 
excuse and to justify his abstention. The condi- 
tions of his calling, or competing duties made it 
impossible for him ; or the lowness of his health, or 
the highness of his principles in some way interfered. 
There was a tendency now to explain what previously 
would never have called for any explanation. 

The causes of this change are not less obvious 
than its symptoms. It is an interesting coincidence 
that Lord Kitchener had a good deal to do with it. 
The destruction of the bloodthirsty tyranny of the 
Khalifa (1898), and the rescue of a fertile province 
from waste, misery, and massacre, caused many 
people to look with less disapproving eyes than 
formerly upon the profession of the soldier. The 
long anxieties of the South African War, and the 
levies of volunteers from all parts of the Empire, who 
went out to take a share in it, forced men to think 
not only more kindly of soldiers, but also to think 



412 DEMOCRACY AND NATIONAL SERVICE 

Part iv. of war itself no longer as an illusion but as a 

Chapter reality. 1 

VIIL The events which happened during the last decade 

Some — the creation of the German Navy — the attempt 
reflections, and failure of the British Government to abate the 
rivalry in armaments — the naval panic and the 
hastily summoned Defence Conference in 1909 — the 
Russo-Japanese war — the Agadir crisis — the two 
Balkan wars — the military competition between 
Germany and France — all these combined to sharpen 
the consciousness of danger and to draw attention 
to the need for being prepared against it. 

These events, which crowded the beginning of the 
twentieth century, stirred and troubled public opinion 
in a manner which not only Mr. Cobden, who died in 
1865, but almost equally Mr. Gladstone, who survived 
him by more than thirty years, would have utterly 
refused to credit. Both these statesmen had been 
convinced that the world was moving steadily to- 
wards a settled peace, and that before another 
century had passed away — possibly even in a single 
generation — their dreams of general disarmament 
would be approaching fulfilment. 

And to a certain extent our own generation 
remains still affected by the same notions. Amid 
the thunders of more than a thousand miles of battle 
we still find ourselves clinging tenaciously to the 
belief, that the world has entered suddenly, and 
unexpectedly, upon an abnormal period which, from 

1 Influences of another kind altogether had much to do with the cleansing 
of public opinion — the writings of Henley, of Mahan, and of Mr. Rudyard 
Kipling. Though not so well known as the works of these, Henderson's Life 
of Stonewall Jackson has nevertheless changed many courses of thought, 
and its indirect effect in removing false standards has been very great. I 
can never sufficiently acknowledge my personal debt to these four. 



NATURE OF GERMAN ENMITY 413 

its very nature, can only be of very brief duration. partIV. 
This comforting conviction does not appear to rest chapter 

upon solid grounds. In the light of history it would , 

not seem so certain that we have not passed out of Some , 

. i • p i -it historical 

an abnormal period into the normal — if lamentable — reflections. 
condition when a nation, in order to maintain its 
independence, must be prepared at any moment to 
fight for its life. 

It would be profitless to pursue these speculations. 
It is enough for our own generation that we now 
find ourselves in a situation of the gravest danger ; 
and that it depends upon the efforts which we as a 
nation put forth, more than upon anything else, 
whether the dauger will pass away or settle down 
and become chronic. 

Although we failed to perceive or acknowledge 
the danger until some nine months ago, it had been 
there for at least fifteen years, probably for twice 
that number. 

German antagonism to England has been com- 
pounded of envy of our possessions, contempt for 
our character, and hatred of our good fortune. What 
galled our rival more than anything else, was the 
fact that we enjoyed our prosperity, and held our 
vast Empire, upon too easy terms. The German 
people had made, and were continuing to make, 
sacrifices to maintain their position in the world, 
while the British people in their view were making 
none. And if we measure national sacrifices by 
personal service, and not merely in money payments, 
it is difficult to see what answer is to be given to this 
charge. 

It is clear that unless the result of this war be to 



414 DEMOCRACY AND NATIONAL SERVICE 

Part iv. crush Germany as completely as she herself hoped 

Chapter at the beginning of it, to crush France, our own 
viii . . 
' danger will remain, unless Germany's chief griev- 

some ance against us is meanwhile removed. It is not a 

historical ° . 

reflections, paradox, but merely a statement of plain fact, to say 
that Germany's chief grievance against ourselves 
was, that we were not prepared to withstand her 
attack. Her hatred, which has caused, and still 
causes us so much amazement, was founded upon 
the surest of foundations — a want of respect. The 
Germans despised a nation which refused to recognise 
that any obligation rested on its citizens, to fit them- 
selves, by serious training, for defence of their in- 
heritance. And they will continue to despise us 
when this war is over if we should still fail to recognise 
this obligation. Despising us, they will continue 
also to hate us ; the peace of the world will still be 
endangered ; and we shall not, after all our sacrifices, 
have reached the security at which we aimed. 

We may end this war without winning it, and at 
the same time without being defeated. And although 
it appears to be still believed by some persons that 
we can win, in some sort of fashion, without accepting 
the principle of national service, even those who 
entertain this dangerous confidence will hardly dare 
to deny that, after a war which ends without a 
crowning victory, we shall have to accept conscription 
at once upon the signature of peace. 

For it should be remembered that we have 
other things to take into account besides the mood 
of Germany. If we stave off defeat, only with the 
assistance of allies — all of whom have lorsg ago 
adopted universal military service in its most rigorous 



HEART-SEARCHINGS 415 

form — we shall have to reckon with their appraise- part iv. 
ment of the value of our assistance. If we are Chapter 

to judge by Germany's indomitable enterprise dur- ' 

ing the past two generations, she is likely to recover ®?™ rical 
from the effects of this war at least as rapidly as reflections. 
ourselves. And when she has recovered, will she 
not hunger again for our possessions, as eagerly as 
before, if she sees them still inadequately guarded % 
And maybe, when that time comes, there may be 
some difficulty in finding allies. For a Power which 
declines to recognise the obligation of equal sacrifices, 
which refuses to make preparations in time of peace, 
and which accordingly, when war occurs, is ever found 
unready, is not the most eligible of comrades in arms. 

In a recent letter the Freiherr von Hexenkiichen 
refers, in his sour way, to some of the matters which 
have been discussed in this chapter. ..." The 
' British People," he writes, " appear to be mightily 
' exercised just now about their own and their neigh- 
' bours' consciences ; about what they may or may 
' not do with decency ; about whether or no football 
* matches are right ; or race-meetings ; or plays, 
1 music-hall entertainments, concerts, the purchase 
' of new clothes, and the drinking of alcohol ; whether 
' indeed any form of enjoyment or cheerfulness ought 
' to be tolerated in present circumstances. 

" But although you vex yourselves over these 
' and other problems of a similar kind, you never 
' seem to vex yourselves about the abscess at the 
' root of the tooth. 

" The Holy Roman Empire, which was not holy, 
' nor Roman, nor yet an empire, reminds mj& not a 
' little of your so-called voluntary military system, 



416 DEMOCRACY AND NATIONAL SERVICE 



Part IV. 

Chapter 
VIII. 

Some 

historical 

reflections. 



which is not voluntary, nor military, nor yet a 
system. It is only a chaos, a paradox, and a 
laughing-stock to us Germans. 

" It is our army, and not yours, which really rests 
on a voluntary basis. Our whole people for a 
century past have voluntarily accepted the obliga- 
tion of universal military service. Those amongst 
us who have raised objections to this system are 
but an inconsiderable fraction ; negligible at any 
time, but in this or any other great crisis, not merely 
negligible, but altogether invisible and inaudible. 

" Our people desire their army to be as it is, 
otherwise it would not be as it is. No Kaiser, or 
Bureaucracy, or General Staff could impose such 
a system against the public will and conscience. 
Your people, on the other hand, have refused as 
a people to accept the military obligation. By 
various devices they endeavour to fix the burden 
on the shoulders of individuals. Is this the true 
meaning of the word ' voluntary ' — to refuse ? . . . 
Sir, I desire to be civil ; but was there ever a more 
conspicuous instance of cant in the whole history 
of the world, than your self-righteous boastings about 
your ' voluntary ' military system % 

" You may wonder why I bracket these two things 
together — your soul-searchings about amusements 
of all kinds, and your nonsensical panegyrics on the 
' voluntary ' principle. ... To my eyes they are 
very closely connected. 

" Cheerfulness is a duty in time of war. Every 
man or woman who smiles, and keeps a good heart, 
and goes about his or her day's work gaily, helps 
by so much to sustain the national spirit. Not 
good, but harm, is done to the conduct of the war, 



THE DUTY OF CHEERFULNESS 417 

by moping and brooding over casualty lists, and PartIV. 
by speculations as to disasters which have occurred, Chapter 

or are thought to be imminent. But there is one . 

essential preliminary to national cheerfulness — p ome . , 
before a nation can be cheerful it must have a good reflections. 
conscience ; and it cannot have a good conscience 
unless it has done its duty. 

' Your nation has a bad conscience. The reason 
is that, as a nation, it has not done its duty. This 
may be the fault of the leaders who have not dared 
to speak the word of command. But the fact 
remains, that you well know — or at any rate suspect 
in your hearts — that you have not done your whole 
duty. And consequently you cannot be really 
cheerful about anything. As you go about your 
daily work or recreations, you are all the while 
looking back over your shoulders with misgiving. 
As a nation you have not — even yet — dedicated 
yourselves to this war. When you have done so — 
if ever you do — your burden of gloom and mistrust 
will fall from your back, like that of Christian as he 
passed along the highway, which is fenced on either 
side with the Wall that is called Salvation.^ 

In the great American Civil War, the Southern 
States, which aimed at breaking away from the Union, 
adopted conscription within a year from the begin- 
ning. They were brave fighters ; but they were 
poor, and they were in a small minority. The 
Northern States — confident in their numbers and 
wealth — relied at first upon the voluntary system. 
It gave them great and gallant armies ; but these 
was not enough ; and as months went by President 
Lincoln realised that they were not enough. 

2e 



418 DEMOCRACY AND NATIONAL SERVICE 

Part iv. Disregarding the entreaties of his friends, to 

Chapter beware of asking of the people ' what the people 

VIIL would never stand/ disregarding the clamours of 

some his enemies about personal freedom, he insisted upon 

reflections, conscription, believing that by these means alone 

the Union could be saved. And what was the result ? 

A section of the press foamed with indignation. 

Mobs yelled, demonstrated, and in their illogical 

fury lynched negroes, seeing in these unfortunates 

the cause of all their troubles. But the mobs were 

not the American people. They were only a noisy 

and contemptible minority of the American people, 

whose importance as well as courage had been vastly 

over-rated. The quiet people were in deadly earnest, 

and they supported their President. 1 

But the task which Lincoln set himself was one 
of the hardest that a democratic statesman ever 
undertook. The demand which he determined to 
make, and did make, may well have tried his heart 
as he sat alone in the night watches. For compulsion 
was a violation of the habits and prejudices of the 
old American stock, while it was even more distasteful 
to new immigrants. It was contrary to the traditions 
and theories of the Republic, and, as many thought, 
to its fundamental principles. It was open to scornful 
attack on grounds of sentiment. Against a foe who 
were so weak, both in numbers and wealth, how 
humiliating to be driven to such desperate measures ! 
But most of all — outweighing all other considera- 
tions — this war of North and South was not only 
war, but civil war. Families and lifelong friendships 
were divided. What compulsion meant, therefore, 
in this case was, that brothers were to be forced to 

1 Cf. Round Table, March 1915, ' The Politics of War.' 



LINCOLN AND CONSCRIPTION 419 

kill brothers, husbands were to be sent out to slay part iv. 
the kinsmen of their wives, or — as they marched with chapter 
Sherman through Georgia — to set a light with their VIIL 
own hands to the old homesteads where they had some 
been born. Between the warring States there were reflections. 
no differences of blood, tradition, or religion ; or of 
ideas of right and wrong ; no hatred against a foreign 
race ; only an acute opposition of political ideals. 
Compulsion, therefore, was a great thing to ask of 
the American people. But the American people 
are a great people, and they understood. And 
Lincoln was a great man, — one of the greatest, noblest, 
and most human in the whole of history, — and he 
did not hesitate to ask, to insist, and to use force. 
What the end was does not need to be stated here ; 
except merely this, that a lingering and bloody war 
was thereby greatly shortened, and that the Union 
was saved. 

The British Government and people are faced 
to-day with some, but not all — and not the greatest — 
of Lincoln's difficulties. Our traditions and theories 
are the same, to a large extent, as those which prevailed 
in America in 1863. But unlike the North we have 
had recent experience of war, and also of the sacrifices 
which war calls for from the civilian population. 
By so much the shock of compulsion would find us 
better prepared. 

But the other and much greater difficulties which 
beset Lincoln do not exist in the case of the British 
Government. We are not fighting against a foe 
inferior in numbers, but against one who up till now 
has been greatly superior in numbers — who has also 
been greatly superior in equipment, and preparation, 
and in deeply-laid plans. We are fighting against 



420 DEMOCRACY AND NATIONAL SERVICE 

Pabt iv a foe who has invaded and encroached ; not against 
Chapter one who is standing on the defensive, demanding 

" merely to be let go free. The family affections and 

some friendships which would be outraged by conscription 

historical .... . „. . •tit 

reflections, in this war against (Germany are inconsiderable ; mere 
dust in the balance. The present war is waged against 
a foreign nation ; it is not civil war. It is waged 
against an enemy who plainly seeks, not his own 
freedom, but our destruction, and that of our Allies. 
It is waged against an enemy who by the treacherous 
thoroughness of his peace-time preparations, appears 
to our eyes to have violated good faith as between 
nations, as in the conduct of the campaign he has 
disregarded the obligations of our common humanity. 
We may be wrong ; we may take exaggerated views 
owing to the bitterness of the struggle ; but such is 
our mind upon the matter. 

Lincoln's task would have been light had such 
been the mind of the Northern States half a century 
ago, and had he been faced with nothing more 
formidable than the conditions which prevail in 
England to-day. It does not need the courage of a 
Lincoln to demand from our people a sacrifice, upon 
which the safety of the British Empire depends, 
even more certainly, than in 1863 did that of the 
American Union. 



CHAPTER IX 

THE CRUCIBLE OF WAR 

If in the foregoing pages the Liberal party has PaktIV. 

come in for the lamer share of criticism, the reason Chapter 

. . TV 
is, that during the ten critical years, while dangers 

were drawing to a head, a Liberal Government The . 

crucible 

chanced to be in power. That things would have of war. 
been managed better and more courageously had 
the Unionists been in power may be doubted ; and 
certainly it is no part of my present task to champion 
any such theory. 

The special type of politician whose influence 
has wrought so much evil of late is no peculiar product 
of the Liberal party. He is the product of the party 
system in its corrupt decadence. You find him in 
the ranks of the Opposition as well as in those of 
the Ministerialists, just as you find good and true 
men in both. In this last lies our hope. In our 
present trouble good and true men have a chance 
of taking things into their own hands, which has been 
denied to them for many generations. 

This book has been written to establish the Need 
for National Service, in order that the British Empire 
may maintain itself securely in the present circum- 

421 



422 DEMOCRACY AND NATIONAL SERVICE 

Part iv. stances of the world. If this contention be true it 

Chapter is obvious that a corresponding Duty lies upon 

Ix " the whole nation to accept the burden of military 

The . service. 

crucible 

of war. Neither need nor duty has ever been made clear 

to the British people by their leaders. Owing to the 
abuses of the party system, increasing steadily over 
a considerable period of years, a certain type of 
politician has been evolved, and has risen into great 
prominence — a type which does not trust the people, 
but only fears them. In order to maintain them- 
selves and their parties in power, politicians of this 
type have darkened the eyes and drugged the spirit 
of the nation. 

It is no part of the plan of this volume to offer 
criticisms upon the naval and military aspects of 
the present war, or upon the wisdom or unwisdom 
of the operations which have been undertaken by 
land and sea. All that need be said in this connection 
may be put into a very few words. 

As we read and re-read British history we cannot 
but be impressed with the fact that our leading 
statesmen, misled by the very brilliancy of their 
intellectual endowments, have always been prone to 
two errors of policy, which the simpler mind of the 
soldier instinctively avoids. They have ever been 
too ready to conclude prematurely that a certain line 
of obstacles is so formidable that it cannot be forced ; 
and they have also ever been too ready to accept 
the notion, that there must surely be some ingenious 
far way round, by which they may succeed in cir- 
cumventing the infinite. 

The defect of brilliant brains is not necessarily a 



crucible 
of war. 



MAIN PRINCIPLE OF STRATEGY 423 

want of courage — daring there has usually been in p artIv . 
plenty— but they are apt to lack fortitude. They chapter 
are apt to abandon the assault upon positions which IX - 
are not really invulnerable, and to go off, chasing The" 
after attractive butterflies, until they fall into quag- 
mires. Dispersion of effort has always been the 
besetting sin of British statesmen and the curse of 
British policy. There is no clearer example of this 
than the case of William Pitt the Younger, who 
went on picking up sugar islands all over the world, 
when he ought to have been giving his whole 
strength to beating Napoleon. 

Very few obstacles are really insurmountable, 
and it is usually the shortest and the safest course 
to stick to what has been already begun. Especially 
is this the case when your resources in trained soldiers 
and munitions of war are painfully restricted. At 
the one point, where you have decided to attack, 
the motto is push hard ; and at all others, where 
you may be compelled to defend yourselves, the 
motto is holdfast. 

The peril of British war councils in the past has 
always been (and maybe still is) the tendency of 
ingenious argument to get the better of sound 
judgment. In the very opposite of this lies safety. 
We find the true type of high policy, as well as 
of successful campaigning, in the cool and patient 
inflexibility of Wellington, holding fast by one 
main idea, forcing his way over one obstacle after 
another which had been pronounced invincible — 
through walled cities ; into the deep valleys of the 
Pyrenees ; across the Bidassoa — till from the crests 
of the Great Rhune and the Little his soldiers looked 
down at last upon the plains of France. 



424 DEMOCRACY AND NATIONAL SERVICE 

part iv. Our most urgent problem with regard to the 

Chapter present war, is how we may win it most thoroughly ; 

' but, in addition to this, there are two questions 

The which have recently engaged a good deal of public 

of war. attention. There is a Political question — what sort 

of European settlement is to take place after the 

war ? And there is also a Criminal question — what 

sort of punishment shall be meted out, if crimes, 

contrary to the practice of war among civilised 

and humane states, have been committed by our 

antagonists ? 

I have not attempted to deal with either of these. 
They do not seem to be of extreme urgency ; for 
unless, and until, we win the war it is somewhat idle 
to discuss the ultimate fate of Europe or the penalty 
of evil deeds. You cannot restore stolen property 
until you have recovered it, and you cannot punish 
a malefactor, nor is it very convenient even to try 
him, while he is still at large. If that be true, which 
was said of old by a great king — I do not make peace 
with barbarians but dictate the terms of their surrender 
— we are still a long way from that. 

I have not occupied myself therefore with what 
are termed ' German atrocities.' So far as this 
matter is concerned, I am satisfied to let it rest for 
the present upon the German statement of intentions 
before war began, 1 and upon the proclamations which 

1 " A war conducted with energy cannot be directed merely against the 
' combatants of the enemy State and the positions they occupy, but it will 
' and must in like manner seek to destroy the total intellectual and material 
' resources of the latter. Humanitarian claims, such as the protection of 
' men and their goods, can only be taken into consideration in so far as the 
' nature and object of the war permit. 

" International Law is in no way opposed to the exploitation of the 
' crimes of third parties (assassination, incendiarism, robbery, and the like) 
' to the prejudice of the enemy. . . . The necessary aim of war gives the 
' belligerent the right and imposes on him the duty, according to circum- 



WHAT WE ARE FIGHTING ABOUT 425 

have been issued subsequently, with the object of partIV. 
justifying their mode of operations by sea and land. Chapter 

The case against Germany on her own admission, is '_ 

quite strong enough without opening a further The 
inquistion under this heading. 1 of war. 

It is essential, however, to realise the falsities 
and perversities upon which the great fabric of 
German policy is founded ; for otherwise we shall 
never understand either the nature of the enemy 
with whom we are at present engaged, or the full 
extent of the danger by which, not only we, but 
civilisation itself is now threatened. It is essential 
that the whole British race should understand the 
nature of the evils against which they are fighting — 
the ambitions of Germany — the ruthless despotism 
of the Prussian system — the new theories of right 
and wrong which have been evolved by thinkers 
who have been paid, promoted, and inspired by the 
State, in order to sanctify the imperial policy of 
spoliation. 

It is also essential for us to realise the nature of 
those things for which we are fighting — what we 
shall save and secure for our posterity in case of 
victory ; what we stand to lose in event of defeat. 
The preservation or ruin of our inheritance, spiritual 
and material — the maintenance or overthrow of our 



* stances, the duty not to let slip the important, it may be the decisive 
' advantages to be gained by such means." — The German War Book, issued 
by the Great General Staff. 

1 Clearly, however, when it comes to the discussion of terms of peace, 
not only the political question, but also the criminal question, will have to 
be remembered. Oddly enough the ' pacifist ' section, which has already 
been clamorous for putting forward peace proposals, seems very anxious 
that we should forget, or at any rate ignore, the criminal question — odd, 
because ' humanity ' is the stuff they have set up their bills to trade in. 



426 DEMOCKACY AND NATIONAL SEKVICE 

Part iv. institutions, traditions, and ideas — the triumph of 

Chapter these, or the supplanting of them by a wholly 

IX ' different order, which to our eyes wears the appear - 

Tte ance of a vast machine under the control of savages — 

crucible - . . ., . . _ 

of war. are the mam issues 01 the present war. And when 
now at last, we face them squarely, we begin to 
wonder, why of late years, we have been wont to 
treat problems of national defence and imperial 
security with so much levity and indifference. 

It is profitable to turn our eyes from the con- 
templation of German shortcomings inwards upon 
our own. If we have been guilty as a people 
during recent times of weakness, blindness, indolence, 
or cowardice, we should face these facts squarely, 
otherwise there is but a poor chance of arriving at 
better conditions. If we have refused to listen to 
unpleasant truths, and to exchange a drowsy and 
dangerous comfort against sacrifices which were 
necessary for security, it is foolish to lay the whole 
blame upon this or that public man, this or that 
government. For, after all, both public men and 
governments were our own creation ; we chose them 
because we liked them ; because it gave us pleasure 
and consolation to listen to their sayings ; because 
their doings and their non-doings, their un-doings 
and their mis-doings were regarded with approval 
or indifference by the great bulk of our people. 

It would be wise also to take to heart the lesson, 
plainly written across the record of the last nine 
months, that the present confusion of our political 
system is responsible, as much as anything — perhaps 
more than anything — for the depreciated currency 
of public character. The need is obvious for a 
Parliament and a Government chosen by the Empire, 



CAUSES OF WEAKNESS AND STRENGTH 427 

responsible to the Empire, and charged with the Part iv. 
security of the Empire, and with no other task. Chapter 

Why we are righting at all is one of our problems ; The . 
why we are rinding it so hard to win is another. In of war. 
what does the main strength of our enemies consist ? 
And in what does our own chief weakness consist ? 

To say that our weakness is to be sought in our 
own vices, and the strength of our enemies in their 
virtues, is of course a commonplace. But one has 
only to open the average newspaper to realise the 
need for restating the obvious. For there the 
contrary doctrine is set forth daily and weekly with 
a lachrymose insistency — that our hands are weakened 
because we are so good ; that the Germans fight at 
an enormous advantage because they are so wicked 
and unscrupulous. 

But the things which we are finding hardest to over- 
come in our foes are not the immoral gibberings of 
professors, or the blundering cynicism of the German 
Foreign Office, or the methodical savagery of the 
General Staff, whether in Belgium or on the High 
Seas. These are sources of weakness and not of 
strength; and even at the present stage it is clear 
that, although they have inflicted immeasurable 
suffering, they have done the German cause consider- 
ably more harm than good. 

Our real obstacles are the loyalty, the self-sacrifice, 
and the endurance of the German people. 

The causes of British weakness are equally plain. 
Our indolence and factiousness ; our foolish con- 
fidence in cleverness, manoeuvres, and debate for 
overcoming obstacles which lie altogether outside 
that region of human endeavour ; our absorption as 



428 DEMOCRACY AND NATIONAL SERVICE 

part iv. thrilled spectators in the technical game of British 
Chapter politics 1 — these vices and others of a similar char- 

1 acter, which, since the beginning of the war we have 

The „ . been struggling — like a man awakening from a night- 

crucible && & . & . & 

of war. mare — to shake off, are still our chief difficulties. It 
is a hard job to get rid of them, and we are not yet 
anything like halfway through with it. 

It must be clear to every detached observer, 
that the moral strength of England in the present 
struggle — like that of France — does not lie in Govern- 
ment or Opposition, but in the spirit of the people ; 
that this spirit has drawn but little support, in the 
case of either country, from the leadership and 
example of the politicians ; and that there is little 
cause in either case to bless or praise them for the 
fidelity of their previous stewardship. In the case of 
France this national spirit was aroused at the begin- 
ning ; in our own case the process of awakening has 
proceeded much more slowly. 

It is essential to put certain notions out of our 
heads and certain other notions into them. From 
the beginning of the war, a large part of the press — 
acting, we are entitled to suppose, in patriotic 
obedience to the directions of the Press Bureau — 
has fostered ideas which do not correspond with the 
facts. Information has been doled out and presented 
in such a way as to destroy all sense of proportion 
in the public mind. 

It is not an uncommon belief, 2 for example, that 
we with our Allies — ever since the first onset, when, 

1 In reality, as regards party politics, we have been for years past very 
like those shouting, cigarette-smoking, Saturday crowds at football matches 
whom we have lately been engaged in reproving so virtuously. 

2 Certainly up to April 1915 it was not an uncommon belief. 



ILLUSIONS OF SUCCESS 429 

being virtuously unprepared, we were pushed back Pabtiv. 
some little distance — have been doing much better Chapter 
than the Germans ; that for months past our adver- IX ' 
saries have been in a desperate plight — lacking Th e 
ammunition, on the verge of bankruptcy and starva- of war. 
tion, and thoroughly discouraged. 

There is also a tendency to assume — despite Lord 
Kitchener's grave and repeated warnings to the 
contrary — that the war is drawing rapidly to a 
conclusion, and that, even if we may have to submit 
to some interruption of our usual summer holidays, 
at any rate we shall eat our Christmas dinners in an 
atmosphere of peace and goodwill. 

The magnitude of the German victories, both in the 
East and West, during the earlier stages of the war, 
is not realised even now by the great majority of 
our fellow-countrymen ; while the ruinous conse- 
quences of these victories to our Allies — the occupa- 
tion of Belgium, of a large part of northern France, 
and of Western Poland — is dwelt on far too lightly. 
Nor is it understood by one man in a hundred, that 
up to the end of last year, British troops were never 
holding more than thirty miles, out of that line of 
more than five hundred which winds, like a great 
snake, from Nieuport to the Swiss frontier. On the 
contrary, it is quite commonly believed that we have 
been doing our fair share of the fighting — or even 
more — by land as well as sea. 

A misleading emphasis of type and comment, 
together with a dangerous selection of items of news, 
are responsible for these illusions ; while the pre- 
valence of these illusions is largely responsible for 
many of our labour difficulties. 

Such dreams of inevitable and speedy victory 



430 DEMOCRACY AND NATIONAL SERVICE 

Part iv. are no doubt very soothing to indolent and timid 

Chapter minds, but they do not make for a vigorous and 

Ix * resolute spirit in the nation, upon which, more 

The than upon anything else, the winning of this war 

crucible , -. 

of war. depends. 

In some quarters there appears still to linger a 
ridiculous idea that we went into this war, out of 
pure chivalry, to defend Belgium. 1 We went into 
it to defend our own existence, and for no other 
reason. We made common cause with Allies who 
were menaced by the same danger as ourselves ; but 
these, most fortunately, had made their preparations 
with greater foresight than we had done. The actual 
fighting has taken place, so far, in their territories 
and not in ours ; but the issue of this war is not one 
whit less a matter of life-or-death for us, than it is 
for them. 

Quite recently I have seen our present situation 
described glowingly and self - complacently as the 
' triumph of the voluntary system.' I must be 
blind of both eyes, for I can perceive no ' triumph ' 
and no ' voluntary ' system. I have seen the terri- 
tories of our Allies seized, wasted, and held fast 
by an undefeated enemy. I have seen our small 
army driven back ; fighting with as much skill 
and bravery as ever in its history ; suffering losses 
unparalleled in its history ; holding its own in 
the end, but against what overwhelming numbers 
and by what sacrifices ! The human triumph is 
apparent enough ; but not that of any system, 
voluntary or otherwise. Neither in this record of 
nine months' ' hard and hot fighting ' on land, nor in 

1 Mr. Lloyd George, Pearson's Magazine, March 1915. 



DEMOCRACY NOT INVINCIBLE 431 

the state of things which now exists at the end of it Part iv. 
all, is there a triumph for anything, or any one, save Chapter 

for a few thousands of brave men, who were left to 

hold fast as best they could against intolerable odds. Tbe .„ 

J ° crucible 

of war. 

Certain contemporary writers appear to claim 
more for that form of representative government, 
which we are in the habit of calling ' democracy,' 
than it is either safe to count on, or true to assert. In 
their eyes democracy seems to possess a superiority 
in all the higher virtuous qualities — ' freedom,' in 
particular — and also an inherent strength which — 
whatever may be the result of the present war — 
makes the final predominance of British institutions 
only a matter of time. 1 

I do not hold with either of these doctrines. 
Universal superiority in virtue and strength is too 
wide a claim to put forward for any system of govern- 
ment. And ' freedom ' is a very hard thing to define. 
It is not merely that the form of constitution, 
which we call ' democracy,' is obviously not the best 
fitted for governing an uncivilised or half-civilised 
people. There are considerations which go much 
deeper than that — considerations of race, religion, 
temperament, and tradition. As it has been in the 
past, so conceivably it may be again in the future, 
that a people, which is in the highest degree civilised 
and humane, will seek to realise its ideals of freedom 
in some other sphere than the control of policy and 
legislation according to the electoral verdicts of its 

1 These views are very prevalent among Liberal writers, and they are 
clearly implied, if not quite so openly stated, in the expressions of Unionists. 
They seem also to be assumed as the basis of one of the ablest articles which 
has yet been written upon the causes of the present war — ' The Schism of 
Europe ' (Round Table, March 1915). 



432 DEMOCRACY AND NATIONAL SERVICE 

Part iv. citizens. It is even possible that its national aspira- 

Chapter tions may regard some other end as a higher good 

x ' even than freedom. We cannot speak with certainty 

The . as to the whole human race, but only with regard to 

c rue ibis 

of war. ourselves and certain others, who have been bred 
in the same traditions. 

If a personal and autocratic government — the 
German for example — is able to arouse and maintain 
among its people a more ardent loyalty, a firmer 
confidence, a more constant spirit of self-sacrifice 
(in time of peace as well as war), I can see no good 
reason for the hope, that democracy, merely because, 
in our eyes, it approaches more nearly to the ideal 
of the Christian Commonwealth, will be able to 
maintain itself against the other. A highly centralised 
system of government has great natural advantages 
both for attack and defence ; and if in addition it be 
supported by a more enduring fortitude, and a more 
self-denying devotion, on the part of the people, it 
seems almost incredible that, in the end, it will not 
prevail over other forms of government which have 
failed to enlist the same support. 

The strength of ail forms of government alike, 
whether against foreign attack or internal disintegra- 
tion, must depend in the long last upon the spirit 
of the people ; upon their determination to maintain 
their own institutions ; upon their willingness to 
undertake beforehand, as well as during the excite- 
ment of war, those labours and sacrifices which are 
necessary for security. The spirit is everything. 
And in the end that spirit which is strongest is likely 
to become predominant, and to impose its own forms, 
systems, and ideas upon civilised and uncivilised 
nations alike. 



NEED OF LEADERSHIP 433 

A considerable part of the world — though it may part iv. 
have adopted patterns of government which are either Chapter 
avowedly democratic or else are monarchies of the _11 
constitutional sort (in essence the same) — is by no The . 11 

v i J crucible 

means wedded to popular institutions ; has no deep- of *«■ 
rooted traditions to give them support ; could easily, 
therefore, and without much loss of self-respect, 
abandon them and submit to follow new fashions. 
But with the United Kingdom, the self-governing 
Dominions, and the United States it is altogether 
different. 

To exchange voluntarily, merely because circum- 
stances rendered it expedient to do so, a system 
which is the only one consistent with our notions of 
freedom would be an apostasy. It would mean our 
immediate spiritual ruin, and for that reason also 
our ultimate material ruin. On the other hand, to 
continue to exist on sufferance, without a voice in 
the destinies of the world, would be an even deeper 
degradation. To be conquered outright, and absorbed, 
would be an infinitely preferable fate to either of these. 

The nations of the world have one need in common 
— Leadership. The spirit of the people can do much, 
but it cannot do everything. In the end that form 
of government is likely to prevail which produces the 
best and most constant supply of leaders. On its 
own theories, democracy of the modern type ought 
to out-distance all competitors '; under this system 
capacity, probity, and vigour should rise most easily 
to the top. 

In practice, however, democracy has come under 
the thumb of the Party System, and the Party System 
has reached a very high point of efficiency. It has 

2f 



434 DEMOCRACY AND NATIONAL SERVICE 

Part iv. bettered the example of the hugest mammoth store 

Chapter in existence. It has elaborated machinery for crush- 

x ' ing out independent opinion and for cramping the 

Tlle . characters of public men. In commending its wares 

crucible ^"^ 

of war. it has become as regardless of truth as a vendor of 
quack medicines. It pursues corruption as an end, 
and it freely uses corruption — both direct and indirect 
— as the means by which it may attain its end. If 
the Party System continues to develop along its 
present lines, it may ultimately prove as fatal to the 
principle of democracy as the ivy which covers and 
strangles the elm-trees in our hedgerows. 

Leadership is our greatest present need, and it 
is there that the Party System has played us false. 
To manipulate its vast and intricate machinery there 
arose a great demand for expert mechanicians, and 
these have been evolved in a rich profusion. But 
in a crisis like the present, mechanicians will not 
serve our purpose. The real need is a Man, who by 
the example of his own courage, vigour, certainty, 
and stedfastness will draw out the highest qualities 
of the people ; whose resolute sense of duty will brush 
opportunism aside ; whose sympathy and truthfulness 
will stir the heart and hold fast the conscience of the 
nation. Leadership of this sort we have lacked. 

The Newcastle speech with its soft words and 
soothing optimism was not leadership. It does not 
give confidence to a horse to know that he has a 
rider on his back who is afraid of him. 

It is idle at this stage to forecast the issue of the 
present war. Nevertheless we seem at last to have 
begun to understand that there is but a poor chance 
of winning it under rulers who are content to wait 
and see if by some miracle the war will win itself ; 



NEED FOR FRANKNESS 435 

or if by another miracle our resources of men and Part iv. 
material will organise themselves. Since the battle Chapter 

of the Marne many sanguine expectations of a speedy _ 

and victorious peace have fallen to the ground. Tbe .,, 

, crucible 

The constant burden of letters from soldiers at the of war. 
front is that the war — so far as England is concerned — 
is only just beginning. And yet, in spite of all these 
disappointments and warnings, the predominant 
opinion in official circles is still, apparently, as 
determined as ever to wait and see what the people 
will stand, although it is transparently clear what they 
ought to stand, and must stand, if they are to remain 
a people. 

We cannot forecast with certainty the issue of the 
present war, but hope nevertheless refuses to be bound. 
There is a false hope and a true one. There may be 
consolation for certain minds, but there is no safety 
for the nation, in the simple faith that democracy 
is in its nature invincible. Democracy is by no 
means invincible. On the contrary, it fights at a 
disadvantage, both by reason of its inferiority in 
central control, and because it shrinks from ruthless- 
ness. Nevertheless we may believe as firmly as 
those who hold this other opinion that in the end it 
will conquer. Before this can happen it must find 
a leader who is worthy of its trust. 

Since August 1914 we have learned many things 
from experience which we previously refused to 
credit upon any human authority. We are not 
altogether done with the past ; for it contains lessons 
and warnings — about men as well as things — which it 
would be wasteful to forget. But our main concern 
is with the present. And we are also treading very 



436 DEMOCEACY AND NATIONAL SERVICE 

part iv. close on the heels of the future, when — as we trust — 
Chapter the resistance of our enemies will be beginning to 

flag ; when the war will be drawing to an end ; 

The afterwards through anxious years (how many we can- 

ofwar. not guess) when the war has ended, and when the 
object of our policy will be to keep the peace which 
has been so dearly bought. 

Lord Roberts was right in his forecast of the 
danger ; nor was he less right in his perception of 
England's military weakness and general unpre- 
paredness for war. But was he also right as to the 
principle of the remedy which he proposed % And 
even if he were right as things stood when he uttered 
his warnings, is his former counsel still right in our 
present circumstances, and as we look forward into 
the future ? Is it now necessary for us to accept 
in practice what has always been admitted in the 
vague region of theory — that an obligation lies upon 
every citizen, during the vigour of his age, to place 
his services, and if need be his life, at the disposal 
of that state under whose shelter he and all those 
who are most dear to him have lived ? 

There is always danger in treating a free people 
like children ; in humouring them, and coaxing them, 
and wheedling them with half-truths ; in asking 
for something less than is really needed, from fear 
that to ask for the whole would alarm them too 
much ; with the foolish hope that when the first 
demand has been granted it will then be easy enough 
to make them understand how much more is still 
necessary to complete the fabric of security ; that 
having deceived them once, it will be all the easier 
to deceive them again. 

As we look back over our country's history we 



THE PEOPLE WILL NOT FLINCH 437 

find that it was those men who told the people the Part iv. 
whole truth — or what, at least, they themselves Chapter 

honestly believed to be the whole truth — who most 

often succeeded in carrying their proposals through. ^ 
In these matters, which touch the very life and soul of war. 
of the nation, all artifice is out of place. The power 
of persuasion lies in the truthfulness of the advocate, 
no less than in the truth of his plea. If the would-be 
reformer is only half sincere, if from timidity or 
regard for popular opinion he chooses to tell but half 
his tale — selecting this, suppressing that, postponing 
the other to a more propitious season — he loses by 
his misplaced caution far more than half his strength. 
When there is a case to be laid before the British 
People it is folly to do it piecemeal, by astute stages 
of pleading, and with subtle reservations. If the 
whole case can be put unflinchingly it is not the 
People who will flinch. The issue may be left with 
safety to a tribunal which has never yet failed in 
its duty, when rulers have had the courage to say 
where its duty lay. 



THE END 



Printed by R. & R. Clark, Limited, Edinburgh. 



ORDEAL BY BATTLE. 



SOME PRESS OPINIONS. 

THE TIMES LITERARY SUPPLEMENT.— "The book is 
a plea for national service in its widest sense, the complete organisa- 
tion of Britain with a view to victory. ' Under conditions of modern 
warfare it is not only armies which need to be disciplined, but whole 
nations.' The moral is brilliantly pointed, and we may be sure that 
Mr. Oliver will not lack disciples to emphasise it. But the book is 
more than an argument in favour of a special policy. It is a store- 
house of political thought, set out with a precision and an eloquence 
which have long been absent from the literature of politics. ... A 
rare eloquence and a wealth of illustration which recalls Burke. Mr. 
Oliver is incapable of taking a bad point, and he has the most 
scrupulous intellectual honesty. Every page is lit up by some 
memorable phrase. Mr. Oliver never fulminates, but his irony is 
as merciless as it is urbane and delicate. . . . The war has produced 
a crop of analyses of German aims and the modern German tempera- 
ment. The chapter on the subject in this volume seems to us to 
surpass in insight and fairness anything else written on the subject." 

SPECTATOR. — " It is an admirable piece of work. . . . Every 
one would be helped by reading this book." 

PUNCH. — " Here is a writer who can classify and summarise 
his political thinking in swift phrases which have the bite of 
epigram with a wit and precision Gallic rather than British. Yet 
not its wit or its lucidity but the fire and sincerity of it make this 
book. Of necessity hurried, it is neither hasty nor glib. Behind it 
lie the thoughts of strenuous years. There is anger in it, but not a 
mean or a cheap stroke. . . . Mr. Oliver makes us see ourselves as 
we are seen. His book is a flame that will burn away much cant 
and rubbish ; it will ' light a candle which will not soon be put 
out.' " 

GLOBE. — "We have long known Mr. Oliver as a writer of 
immense force, and one who, while he holds his opinions with 
tenacious strength, has shown himself ripe in judgment and scrupu- 
lously fair in argument. . . . There is not a chapter in this searching 
analysis of our national strength and weakness which is not informed 
by high patriotism and statesmanlike grasp of causes." 

STANDARD. — "Mr. F. S. Oliver has produced the most 
notable book concerning the war that has yet appeared. The style 
is lucid and distinguished, and there is thought in every page. . . . 
The book should be read by every serious man. It is not only 
thoughtful, but stimulates thought." 

i 



ORDEAL BY BATTLE. 



SOME PRESS OPINIONS. 

THE TIMES.— " Some ten years ago Mr. F. S. Oliver pub- 
lished his Life of Alexander Hamilton, a book which has probably 
had more influence than any political work of the decade. . . . The 
book which he publishes to-day is not less opportune in its moment 
of appearance, and it is likely that its influence will be still greater. 
For it deals with the most urgent problem which has ever faced our 
nation. . . . Some of the things in the book have been said before, 
but we do not think they have ever been said so well. . . . Mr. 
Oliver is scrupulously just, and his chapters are amply documented. 
He has no party bias. ... To those who desire a brilliant survey 
of recent domestic history and character studies done with the clean 
precision of Swift, we recommend these chapters." 

MORNING POST. — "Both for statesmanship and for st; 
(style which is the shadow of personality) Mr. F. S. Oliver's be 
on the causes and conditions of the war is by far the best that r 
yet appeared. ... It is not easy to say anything new and true ^ 
the growth, scope, and intention of German policy. . . . The raos 
and best Mr. Oliver can do ... is to give us a lucid and coherent 
survey of the subject. His survey is excellent ; it contains the gist 
of hundreds of books, new and old, and now and again opens up new 
vistas of speculation." 

DAILY TELEGRAPH— "It may be said at once that Mr. 
Oliver's book is one which invites the closest and most respectful 
consideration. . . . Mr. Oliver is eloquent, fearless, and, in the 
truest sense of the word, ardently patriotic. He believes eagerly in 
getting his fellow-countrymen to face the truth ; he is confident in 
their capacity to realise it. This strong, manly, and determined 
appeal to the nation's manhood and common-sense is bound to do 
good. It is not improbable that it may even prove one of the most 
effective literary weapons in the opening campaign on behalf of 
enlightenment and prompt action." 

SATURDAY REVIEW.— " Already a myriad pages have been 
published on the War and its causes, but now at last a sequence of 
pages grows into a genuine Book, a great and necessary adventure 
in difficult truth-telling. With a courage that never for a moment 
tires, Mr. F. S. Oliver anticipates the verdicts that our grandchildren 
will write and speak ; and his qualities as a good historian — his wit 
and humour, his searching irony, his wide knowledge and unbia 
candour — have won for him the right to speak for posterity. . 
It has taken us five days to read Mr. Oliver's Ordeal by Battle ; and 
if all books claimed and merited the same careful study, reviewers 
would be ruined and the country would be educated and secure." 

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